ch it lay,
as if the quartz had been as soft as wool.

LILY. Oh, the good, good quartz! But does it never get inside of
anything?

L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer, without
being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't
remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else.

ISABEL. Please, there was something I heard you talking about, last
term, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but I heard something about
nests; and I thought it was birds' nests; and I couldn't help
listening; and then, I remember, it was about 'nests of quartz in
granite.' I remember, because I was so disappointed!

L. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly; but I can't tell you about
those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow: but there's no contradiction
between my saying then, and now; I will show you that there is not, some
day. Will you trust me meanwhile?

ISABEL. Won't I!

L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz; it is
on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born quartz
living with a green mineral, called epidote; and they are immense
friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz-crystal,
and a very weak and slender little one of epidote, have begun to grow,
close by each other, and sloping unluckily towards each other, so that
they at last meet. They cannot go on growing together; the quartz
crystal is five times as thick, and more than twenty times as
strong,[151] as the epidote; but he stops at once, just in the very
crowning moment of his life, when he is building his own summit! He lets
the pale little film of epidote grow right past him; stopping his own
summit for it; and he never himself grows any more.

LILY (_after some silence of wonder_). But is the quartz _never_ wicked
then?

L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good-natured, compared to other
things. Here are two very characteristic examples; one is good quartz,
living with good pearlspar, and the other, wicked quartz, living with
wicked pearlspar. In both, the quartz yields to the soft carbonate of
iron: but, in the first place, the iron takes only what it needs of
room; and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal with such
precision, that you must break it away before you can tell whether it
really penetrates the quartz or not; while the crystals of iron are
perfectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But
here