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 themselves 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 unhealthy. You see they were wanted at home, and so to have gone away from home into unhealthy countries to kill birds would have been _selfish_, and one should never be that. So instead of killing them themselves the women sent men to kill them for them, for _they_ could be spared much better, and if they should not come back they would not be nearly so much missed. And the women said to the men, "Kill the birds and tear off their wings, their tails, their bright breasts and heads to sew into our hats or onto the sleeves and collars of our gowns and mantles. Kill them and bring them to us, that you may think us even more lovely than you have done before, when you compare our beauty with theirs and find that ours is the greater. Let us shine down the birds, for they are conceited and think themselves our rivals. Then kill them. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill them." Then the men, whose hearts had always been hard, and over whose eyes there was a film, went forth into the world and began to kill the poor, beautiful birds wherever they could find them. Everywhere the earth was stained with their blood, and the air thick with floating feathers that had been torn from their poor, wounded bodies. It was full, too, of their frightened cries, and of the wails of their starving young ones for the parents who were dead and could not feed them any more. For it is just at the time when the birds lay their eggs and rear their young ones that their plumage is most beautiful--most exquisitely beautiful--and it was just this most _exquisitely_ beautiful plumage that the women, whose hearts the wicked little demon had frozen, wanted to put into their hats. They knew that to get it the young fledgling birds must starve in their nests. But they did not mind that now, their hearts were frozen and the Goddess of Pity was asleep.