tured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults,
like other people; and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to assert
anything energetically, I would assert it by 'my badness,' not 'my
goodness.'

KATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!

L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my 'too-badness.' But you may
as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look carefully at
the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface; and here is a
pretty white sapphire (essentially the same stone as the ruby), in which
you will see the same lovely structure, like the threads of the finest
white cobweb. I do not know what is the exact method of a ruby's
construction; but you see by these lines, what fine construction there
_is_, even in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually
appears as a massive lump or knot. There is therefore no real
mineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals,
but, practically, crystallised masses throw themselves into one of the
three groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either as
Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or fibres),
they make the stones or rocks formed out of them '_fibrous_;' when they
are in folia, they make them '_foliated_;' when they are in knots (or
grains), '_granular_.' Fibrous rocks are comparatively rare, in mass;
but fibrous minerals are innumerable; and it is often a question which
really no one but a young lady could possibly settle, whether one should
call the fibres composing them 'threads' or 'needles.' Here is
amianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton
thread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with
sharper points and brighter lustre than your finest needles have; and
fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace;
and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but
it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is red oxide of copper
(you must not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some of the
films of it off the stone), which is simply a woven tissue of scarlet
silk. However, these finer thread forms are comparatively rare, while
the bolder and needle-like crystals occur constantly; so that, I
believe, 'Needle-crystal' is the best word (the grand one is 'Acicular
crystal,' but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily
understood; and therefore more scientific)