galleries for them to run round by; and so up again; with finer and finer work, till the Egyptians wondered whether they meant the thing for a tower or a pillar:  and I heard them saying to one another, “It was nearly as pretty as lotus stalks; and if it were not for the ugly faces, there would be a fine temple, if they were going to build it all with pillars as big as that!” But in a minute afterwards,—­just as the Gothic spirits had carried their work as high as the upper course, but three or four, of the pyramid—­the Egyptians called out to them to “mind what they were about, for the sand was running away from under one of their tower corners.”  But it was too late to mind what they were about; for, in another instant, the whole tower sloped aside; and the Gothic imps rose out of it like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud; but screaming worse than any puffins you ever heard:  and down came the tower, all in a piece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the flank of the pyramid; against which it snapped short off.  And of course that waked me.

Mary.  What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have told us about Gothic architecture!

L. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you know that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or abolished more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies.  Besides, even in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes of this kind.  I have stood too often, mourning, by the grand fragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt into me.  Still, you must have seen, surely, that these imps were of the Flamboyant school; or, at least, of the German schools correspondent with it in extravagance.

Mary.  But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all this?

L. Here; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it is very small.  But, you see, here is the pyramid, built of great square stones of fluor spar, straight up; and here are the three little pinnacles of mischievous quartz, which have set themselves, at the same time, on the same foundation; only they lean like the tower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at the side:  and here is one great spire of quartz which seems as if it had been meant to stand straight up, a little way off; and then had fallen down against the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away.  In reality, it has crystallized horizontally, and terminated imperfectly:  but, then, by what caprice does one crystal form horizontally, when all the rest stand upright?  But this is nothing to the phantasies of fluor, and quartz, and some other such companions, when they get leave to do anything they like.  I could show you fifty specimens, about every one of which you might fancy a new fairy tale.  Not that, in truth, any crystals get leave to do quite what they like; and many of them are sadly tried, and have little time for caprices—­poor things!