“Avrillia!” called Pirlaps.  “Where is the suet?”

Avrillia was leaning far out over the balcony, gazing down into Nothing.  She straightened up and turned around, looking at them with eyes that hardly saw them.

“It didn’t stick,” she murmured.

“Avrillia! the suet!” cried Pirlaps, laying his hand on her arm and shaking it ever so little.  “The suet!”

He was not cross—­he couldn’t be cross with Avrillia—­but Sara thought he was for once almost half impatient.  Avrillia’s mind came back into her beautiful eyes and she cried remorsefully,

“O Pirlaps, I forgot.  Is it all gone?  What will they think of me?”

“Every bit,” said Pirlaps, relenting at once.  “And Yassuh went to sleep and burnt up a whole panful of crumbs.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Avrillia, “how dreadful!  The suet came quite a while ago, but while I was slicing it I thought of a poem about snow; and then I happened to think that maybe the air over the Verge might be a little warmer than it is here, and so the poem might melt a little as it fell, and, maybe, stick.  But it didn’t,” she finished, growing abstracted again.

“Too bad,” said Pirlaps, peering down into Nothing with real sympathy in his voice.  Then, with a start, “But the suet, Avrillia?”

“Oh, let’s go get it,” cried Avrillia.  “I laid it on my dressing-table when I went to get a fresh handkerchief just before I sat down to write.”

So they flew to Avrillia’s pink bed-room, and there was the suet, in the midst of Avrillia’s lacy pin-cushions and crystal toilet-bottles.  They gathered it up and hurried out to the Birds, who were now eating crumbs and looking fairly good-natured; though you could tell by the way Yassuh’s knees trembled that he had found them in a dreadful state.

Well, you can hardly imagine how busy they were kept, all that afternoon—­Sara and Yassuh and Pirlaps and Avrillia—­supplying crumbs and suet to those thankless Birds.  The lovely Skybird did, toward sundown, trill a beautiful little song of gratitude; but she addressed it to nobody in particular, and looked all the time straight into a fog-bush—­because of course it would have been very bad manners, as she thought, to pay any attention to her hosts.  The little When cast a bright look at Avrillia, who whispered, when no one was looking, “Next year, dear—­the first snow,” and the Snicker, who was the most reckless of all, nudged Sara with his elbow and said in a stage-whisper, “Certainly did have a good time,” and then snickered loud and long.  But the Popinjay and the Squawk and the Redpecker departed without a word of thanks for all the food they had eaten and all the trouble they had caused.

As soon as they were gone Pirlaps and Avrillia drew a long, relieved breath; then Pirlaps tossed his step to Yassuh and seized Avrillia about the waist, and whirled her up and down the silver paths in the gayest, most fantastic little dance Sara had ever seen.  Presently they stopped before Sara.