WHEN THE: HEART IS ‘FROZEN: 15 
they stand, looking and looking, ravenous, hungry 
—you would almost say they were—longing to buy 
them, even though they have new ones of the same 
sort on their head. Ah, if they could see those 
birds as they looked when they were shot, before 
they were dressed and cleaned and made to look so 
smart and fashionable! If they could see them 
with the blood-stains upon them, the wet, warm 
drops running down over the bright breasts— 
perhaps onto the little ones underneath them—the 
poor, broken wings dragging over the ground and 
trying to rise into the air, through which they had 
once flown so easily, the flapping, the struggling ! 
If they could see all this, and much more that had 
been done—that ad to be done—before there was 
that nice, gay, elegant shop-window for them to 
look into, would it not be different then, would 
not the vain heads begin to think a little and the 
frozen hearts to melt? No, I do not think so, 
because of the ugly little demon in the correct suit 
of clothes. They would look in at the window and 
go in at the door still, and—shall I tell you some- 
thing ?—it would be the same, just the same, if all 
those bright feathers in every one of the hats had 
been stripped, not from the birds’ but from the 
angels’ wings. ‘Those who could wear the one could 
wear the other, and if angels were to come down 
