"Now take the sovereign in one hand and this shilling in the other, Norah.""I know what you mean," said she. "The gold sovereign is heavier than the silver shilling.""Yes, dear, it is," said Fred. "Gold is the heaviest of all the metals I have shown you.""I suppose," said Willie, "you remember those thin leaves of silver, we talked about the other night?""Yes," said Norah. "It takes ten thousand of them to make a pile one inch high.""What would you think, then, of gold leaves so thin that twenty-eight of them, one above the other, would not be thicker than the one leaf of silver? It is true, though, and teacher says it takes282,000 leaves of gold to make a pile an inch in height. How very thin the gold must be beaten.""That tells us that gold is much more malleable than silver," said Norah.
