210 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
the faces that had these lovely egret-plumes—these 
beautiful, fashionable ‘‘ ospreys,” so white and yet so 
blood-stained—nodding above them—counted them 
as they came in and as they went out, young faces, 
old faces, soft faces, hard faces, shrivelled faces; 
puckered faces, painted faces, plain faces, ugly faces, 
quite dreadful faces—ah, what numbers of them 
there were! Jt was quite difficult to count them all. 
Every now and again there would be a pretty face, and 
I used to count ¢hose separately—one—two—three— 
four—five—sometimes up to half-a-dozen. That was 
not so tiring, but, you see, I had to count them all. 
Oh, wise but wicked little demon, who blew his 
bad powders into the hearts of a// the women ! 
There were two kinds, you know, and one of them 
was “Vanity.” Now if it had been a man—how- 
ever wicked a one—I feel sure that he would have 
looked about for the women with the pretty faces, 
and who were rather young, to blow ‘hat powder 
into. But the little demon was wiser, in his own 
wicked way. He did not go about, looking and 
looking. He blew it into a/ their hearts, and that 
gave him no trouble at all. 
Now, I must tell you that there are two different 
kinds of White Egrets, with these beautiful feathers 
that the women with the frozen hearts wear. One 
is much larger than the other, and is called the 
