[Footnote A: A curious result happened to the elder Silliman when experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before the compound blowpipe. The reducing flame instantly melted it into a transparent green globule. Perhaps the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which disappear at a lower temperature. But this could not be done if the color was due to organic matter, which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by combustion.] [Footnote B: Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian emeralds of large size and beautiful color are now to be seen in the valuable and choice collections of Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of Philadelphia.] BERRYTOWN. CHAPTER VIII. It rained during the night. The wind blew feebly in the morning, and the sunlight glimmered dully from behind the flying gray clouds. Catharine looked out of her window, anxiously pushing aside the boughs full of wet white roses. The sense of desolation was not strong enough upon her to make her forget that Peter had not yet cut the clover in the lower meadow, and that such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping up an old Bourbon rose, an especial favorite of her father's. Somebody tapped at her door, and Miss Muller rustled in in a flounced white muslin and rose-colored ribbons. She too hurried to the window and looked down. "I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. I can't make you understand, probably, but the Water-cure House is so bald and bare! There is something in the shade here, and the old books, and this wilderness of roses, that forms a fitting background for a friendship like ours, aesthetically considered." "I'm very glad. It's lucky I told Jane to have waffles--" "I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, "and direct her about the table. Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would jar against the finest emotions. What very pretty shoulders you have, child! Such women as you, like potatoes, are best _au naturel_. Now, with those corsets, and this red shawl over the back of your chair, you would make a very good Madonna of the Rubens school. Men's ideal of womanhood then was to be plump, insipid and a mother." "But about the oily butter?" said Kitty, glancing back over the aforesaid shoulders as she stooped to lace her shoes, while Maria hurried off to the kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer emotions, I fancy, when she begins to order her about." But Kitty lost all relish for fun before she sat down to the breakfast-table. Mr. Muller came in. The poor little man hurried to her side: "I passed a sleepless night, Catharine. I feared that I had been rough with you. I forget so often how gentle and tender you are, my darling." Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my word, I've forgotten what happened. And I really never feel especially gentle or tender. You are mistaken about that."