No sooner did he see Miss Herschel, the loving companion and
fellow-worker of so many years, than he characteristically employed her
to fetch one of his last papers, and a plate (or map) of the forty-foot
telescope. "But, for the universe," says Miss Herschel, "I could not
have looked twice at what I had snatched from the shelf; and when he
faintly asked if the breaking up of the Milky Way[1] was in it, I said,
'Yes,' and he looked content." I cannot help remembering this
circumstance; it was the last time I was sent to the library on such an
occasion. That the anxious care for his papers and workrooms never ended
but with his life, was proved by his frequent whispered inquiries if
they were locked and the key safe; of which I took care to assure him
that they were, and the key in Lady Herschel's hands.
[Footnote 1: The _Via Lactea_, or "Milky Way," had long been supposed to
consist of a nebulous, vague, luminous matter, but Herschel showed that
it was really made up of stars and systems of stars.
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