Gradually Simon’s powers of movement returned. He felt them coming back. It was a growing warmth, an inner blooming. He was able to say, “Guess I went a little zonky back there, huh?”

Aventurine is a variety of grainy quartz,—not quarts of rye whiskey, which there is too much of a venture in,—but quartz of silica, gold-spangled throughout with flakes of yellow mica. … There are two kinds of natural aventurine; the one with its spangles of yellow mica is well known as Muscovite talc. It was found on the shores of the White Sea in old times, and is now met with often in the mines of Silesia, in Bohemia, in France, and in Siberia. The other variety, more highly esteemed, is found in Spain and in Scotland. … Dealers have given the name of aventurine to a species of feldspar having the same external characteristics, and sold for the genuine, though a much softer stone. Such dealers are not honest.

THE TWITCH is a short stick of strong ash, about the size of a mopstick, with a hole pierced near the end, through which is passed a piece of strong but small cord, and tied in a loop large enough to admit the open hand freely.

The two stood in the window peering down where parents moved across grass, pointing tongues of colour waving over them.