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 May?

(MAY _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 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 neighbours'
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.

MARY. Pure! Does that mean clear--transparent?

L. No; unless in the case of a transparent substance. You cannot have a
transparent crystal of gold; but you may have a perfectly pure one.

ISABEL. But you said it was the shape that made things be crystals;
therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first virtue, not their
second?

L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only their
second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and things which
the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or shaken, it must
take what shape it can; but it seems as if, even then, it had in itself
the power of rejecting impurity, if it has cryst