Mary.  I’m sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but we’ll come, for all that.

L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying glasses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads about them.  For the best thoughts are generally those which come without being forced, one does not know how.  And so I hope you will get through your wet day patiently.

LECTURE 5.

CRYSTAL VIRTUES

A quiet talk, in the afternoon, by the sunniest window of the Drawing-room.  Present:  Florrie, Isabel, may, Lucilla, Kathleen, Dora, Mary, and some others, who have saved time for the bye-Lecture.

L. So you have really come, like good girls, to be made ashamed of yourselves?

Dora (very meekly).  No, we needn’t be made so; we always are.

L. Well, I believe that’s truer than most pretty speeches:  but you know, you saucy girl, some people have more reason to be so than others.  Are you sure everybody is, as well as you?

The general voice.  Yes, yes; everybody.

L. What!  Florrie ashamed of herself?

(Florrie hides behind the curtain.)

L. And Isabel?

(Isabel hides under the table.)

L. And Mary?

(Mary runs into the corner behind the piano.)

L. And Lucilla?

(Lucilla hides her face in her hands.)

L. Dear, dear; but this will never do.  I shall have to tell you of the faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in heart again.

May (coming out of her corner).  Oh! have the crystals faults, like us?

L. Certainly, May.  Their best virtues are shown in fighting their faults; and some have a great many faults; and some are very naughty crystals indeed.

Florrie (from behind her curtain).  As naughty as me?

Isabel (peeping out from under the table-cloth).  Or me?

L. Well, I don’t know.  They never forget their syntax, children, when once they’ve been taught it.  But I think some of them are, on the whole, worse than any of you.  Not that it’s amiable of you to look so radiant, all in a minute, on that account.

Dora.  Oh! but it’s so much more comfortable.

(Everybody seems to recover their spirits.  Eclipse of Florrie and
Isabel terminates.)

L. What kindly creatures girls are, after all, to their neighbors’ failings!  I think you may be ashamed of yourselves indeed, now, children!  I can tell you, you shall hear of the highest crystalline merits that I can think of, to-day:  and I wish there were more of them; but crystals have a limited, though a stern, code of morals; and their essential virtues are but two;—­the first is to be pure, and the second to be well shaped.