12 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
pleased too, as well as the others. But, you see, 
it was all done by magic. Then from the other 
little bottle, which was labelled ‘ Apathy,” the 
demon took a pinch of the cold powder and blew 
it on the women’s hearts, and as soon as it fell 
on them they became frozen, so that all the pity 
that had been in them before was frozen, too. 
Frozen pity, you know, is of no good whatever. 
You can no more be kind with it in that state 
than you can bathe in frozen water. So now there 
was nothing but vanity in the women’s heads, and 
no pity in their hearts, and as the Goddess of Pity 
was fast asleep, it was not possible for any more to 
be put into them until she woke up. Nobody could 
tell when that would be. Gods and goddesses some- 
times sleep for a long time, and very soundly. Be- 
sides, you know, this was a charmed sleep. 
So, now, what happened after the wicked little 
demon had behaved in this wicked way? Why, 
the women whose hearts he had frozen began to 
kill the poor, beautiful birds, those birds that Dame 
Nature loved so, and had taken such pains to keep 
alive. I do not mean that they killed them them- 
selves with their own hands. No, they did not do 
that, for they had not enough time to go to the 
countries where the beautiful birds lived, which 
were often a long way off as well as being very 
