"But that isn't because she is poor. If her own mother were there, she might be happy."
"Oh, yes! I could be real happy there, myself, seeing the waves, and hearing them clash, if you and mamma and Johnny were there; and it wouldn't make any difference if I had on my very worst dress."
"Wouldn't you be just a little happier if you had on a diamond ring like Julia's?" asked Felix quizzically.
"Perhaps I should for a little while; but I would rather papa should have a diamond pin like Mr. Frothingham's. Didn't it shine beautifully?"
"A diamond is nothing but carbon," remarked Johnny; "and charcoal is carbon too. I will give papa a piece of charcoal to wear."
"Ho, ho!" laughed Felix: "that's a yarn! A diamond is just as different from charcoal as possible!"
"How?" asked Johnny.
"Why, it's white, and charcoal is black; it's transparent, and charcoal isn't; it won't rub off, and charcoal will; it won't burn up like charcoal, and it's worth no end of times more."
"But they are both carbon just the same; and those lozenges you are eating are principally carbon, too, although they are a good deal whiter than charcoal. You haven't any idea how much charcoal you are eating, when you eat sugar or candy. There isn't any particular difference between the whitest of sugar and charcoal, except that the particles are so arranged as to reflect or absorb light differently. I can take a handful of white sugar, and, by putting in something to change the arrangement of the particles, make it look as much like charcoal as it is, just as black as your boot, and spread out into a great deal larger space than it occupied before."
"Yes, he can," said Sue: "I've seen him do it."