Kathleen.  If we break it well!  May we break it?

L. To powder, if you like.

(Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation.  Third Interlude.  It sustains severely philosophic al treatment at all hands.)

Florrie (to whom the last fragments have descended).  Always leaves, and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust?

L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.

(Shows them to Florrie through magnifying glass.)

Isabel (peeping over Florrie’s shoulder).  But then this bit under the glass looks like that bit out of the glass!  If we could break this bit under the glass, what would it be like?

L. It would be all leaves still.

Isabel.  And then if we broke those again?

L. All less leaves still.

Isabel (impatient).  And if we broke them again, and again, and again, and again, and again?

L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it.  Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the large ones:  because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent; while the large flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when you let it go, and broke when you tried to bend it far.  And a large mass would not bend at all.

Mary.  Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way?

L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimen of a foliated crystallization.  The little triangles are portions of solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica; but you see it is made up of triangles like the gold, and stands, almost accurately, as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold.  Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals.

Mary.  Is it iron?  I never saw iron so bright.

L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallized:  from its resemblance to mica, it is often called micaceous iron.

Kathleen.  May we break this, too?

L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, it would not break like the mica; it is much harder.  But take the glass again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles where they lap over each other.  The gold has the same:  but you see them better here, terrace above terrace, countless, and, in successive angles, like superb fortified bastions.

May.  But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?

L. Far from it; mica is occasionally so. but usually of hexagons; and here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that the leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as their autumnal gold.

Florrie.  Oh! oh! oh! (jumps for joy).

L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?

Florrie.  Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.