fairy-like Japanese anemones, great bunches of mauve Michaelmas daisies, and countless others, and mingled with all these are many shades of green. Yet it is the light of the sun alone that falling on all these varied objects, makes that glorious blaze of colour; it seems incredible. It may be difficult to believe, but it is true beyond all doubt. Each delicate velvety petal has some quality in it which causes it to absorb certain of the sun's rays and send back the others, and its colour is determined by those it sends back. Well then how infinitely varied must be the colours hidden in the sun's light, colours which, mixed all together, make white light! Yes, this is so, for all colours that we know are to be found there. In fact, the colours that make up sunlight are the colours to be seen in the rainbow, and they run in the same order. Have you ever looked carefully at a rainbow? If not, do so at the next chance. You will see it begins by being dark blue at one end, and passes through all colours until it gets to red at the other. We cannot see a rainbow every day just when we want to, but we can see miniature rainbows which contain just the same colours as the real ones in a number of things any time the sun shines. For instance, in the cut-glass edge of an inkstand or a decanter, or in one of those old-fashioned hanging pieces of cut-glass that dangle from the chandelier or candle-brackets. Of course you have often seen these colours reflected on the wall, and tried to get them to shine upon your face. Or you have caught sight of a brilliant patch of colour on the wall and looked around to see what caused it, finally tracing it to some thick edge of shining glass standing in the sunlight. Now, the cut-glass edge shows these colours to you because it breaks up the light that falls upon it into the colours it is made of, and lets each one come out separately, so that they form a band of bright colours instead of just one ray of white light. This is perhaps a little difficult to understand, but I will try to explain. When a ray of white light falls on such a piece of glass, which is known as a prism, it goes in as white light at one side, but the three-cornered shape of the glass breaks it up into the colours it is made of, and each colour comes out separately at the other side--namely, from blue to red--like a little rainbow, and instead of one ray of white light, we have a broad band of all the colours that light is made of.