Pee WICKED LITTLE DEMON ~9 
to have influence over the men, and I put no film over 
their eyes. They will see how beautiful my birds are, 
and they will know that they are more beautiful alive 
than dead. And because of this and their soft hearts 
they will not kill them, and to the men they will say, 
‘Do not kill them,’ and my beautiful birds will live. 
Women will spare them because they have pity, and 
men because women ask them to. And to make it 
still more certain, see yonder on that hill sits the 
Goddess of Pity. She has come from heaven to help 
me, and has promised to stay till I return. It is from 
her that pity goes into all those hearts that have it, 
and because she is a goddess, she sends most of it 
into the hearts of women. Have no fear, then, for 
until the Goddess of Pity falls asleep my birds are 
safe.” ‘* But may she not fall asleep?” said Truth. 
But Dame Nature had hurried away with her scissors, 
and was out of hearing. 
As soon as she was gone, there crept out of a 
dark cave, where he had been hiding, an ugly little 
mannikin, who hated Dame Nature and her daughter 
Truth, and did everything he could to spite them 
both. ‘Their very names made him angry. He was 
a demon, really, and ugly, as I say. But he did not 
look ugly, because nobody saw him. All that people 
saw when they looked at him was a suit of clothes, 
and this suit of clothes was so well made and so 
