slowly enough, in stars, much like snow. Gold needs more
heat to melt it, but crystallises also exquisitely, as I will presently
show you. Arsenic and sulphur crystallise from their vapours. Now in any
of these cases, either of melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies, the
particles are usually separated from each other, either by heat, or by
an intermediate substance; and in crystallising they are both brought
nearer to each other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as possible:
the essential part of the business being not the bringing together, but
the packing. Who packed your trunk for you, last holidays, Isabel?

ISABEL. Lily does, always.

L. And how much can you allow for Lily's good packing, in guessing what
will go into the trunk?

ISABEL. Oh! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always gets
everything in.

LILY. Ah! but, Isey, if you only knew what a time it takes! and since
you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't do anything
with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.

L. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew what a time it takes;
and I wish any of us knew what a time crystallisation takes, for that is
consummately fine packing. The particles of the rock are thrown down,
just as Isabel brings her things--in a heap; and innumerable Lilies, not
of the valley, but of the rock, come to pack them. But it takes such a
time!

However, the best--out and out the best--way of understanding the thing,
is to crystallise yourselves.

THE AUDIENCE. Ourselves!

L. Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly, on the
schoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground. You
can play at crystallisation there as much as you please.

KATHLEEN _and_ JESSIE. Oh! how?--how?

L. First, you must put yourselves together, as close as you can, in the
middle of the grass, and form, for first practice any figure you like.

JESSIE. Any dancing figure, do you mean?

L. No; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you like,
standing close together. You had better outline it first on the turf,
with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly drawn; then get
into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side, till you are all quite
in it, and no empty space left.

DORA. Crinoline and all?

L. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline surface,
unless you pin it in; and then you may make a polished crystal of
yourselves.

LILY. Oh, we'