L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?

Florrie.  Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks,
I suppose.

L. Now you have it, Florrie.

Violet (sighing).  There are so many beautiful things we never see!

L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we should all sigh for—­that there are so many ugly things we never see.

Violet.  But we don’t want to see ugly things!

L. You had better say, “We don’t want to suffer them.”  You ought to be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.

Violet.  I don’t understand;—­how is that like the leaves?

L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our neglect of multiplied beauty.  Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone, and takes more notice of it than of all the green in the wood, and you, or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;—­and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened.

May.  But we do not see the people being killed or dying.

L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him; and played no croquet.  But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questions till I’ve done:  for we branch ("exfoliate,” I should say, mineralogically) always into something else,—­though that’s my fault more than yours; but I must go straight on now.  You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of leaf-crystals; and you see the sort of look they have:  you can easily remember that “folium” is Latin for a leaf, and that the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called “folia;” but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones, other things that are like it in structure are called “micas;” thus we have Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-mica, which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this foliated iron is called “micaceous iron.”  You have then these two great orders, Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows; and Leaf-crystals, made (probably) of needles interwoven; now, lastly, there are crystals of a third order, in heaps, or knots, or masses, which may be made either of leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound like Roman fasces;