Gray Lady donated some delicious cake of Ann’s make, and hot chocolate, and while the visitors enjoyed it, they asked many questions about the bird class, the school at Foxes Corners, and the motives of the Kind Hearts’ Club itself; for this name had been printed on the posters advertising the sale. The result that concerned the public good was that other men and women resolved, even if they could not do it as thoroughly as Gray Lady, to supply the teachers in their various districts with charts and books, and before night settled down, Sarah Barnes, the treasurer of the Club, was hugging tight in her arms a small iron box, with a lock and key, wherein were fifty precious dollars, while orders that meant an equal sum before the close of the school year were being copied from a rather mussy paper into a blank-book, by Tommy Todd, the secretary, whose usually clear upright letters were made crooked by his excitement. The next question was, How should the money be spent? Each child was asked to write his or her idea on a slip of paper and bring it to the birds’ Christmas festival that was to be held, as seemed fitting, in Birdland, the afternoon before Christmas, from two o’clock until four. “Supposin’ it’s cold and snowy?—that’s a long time to be outdoors,” said Eliza Clausen, as she walked home between Sarah and Ruth Barnes. “It may not be out-of-doors,” said Sarah, looking very wise. “Then it can’t be in Birdland, as Gray Lady said,” persisted Eliza, who, though she was less critical since she had come under the older woman’s influence, could not resist once in a while, “hoping for the worst,” as Gray Lady called borrowing trouble. “Yes; the party can be indoors, and yet in Birdland,” answered Sarah. “Oh, you’re trying to catch me with a riddle or something.” “If I am, I’ll tell you the answer at the birds’ Christmas tree next Tuesday,” called Sarah, as she turned in at her own gate. * * * * * A two-inch fall of soft, clinging snow fell during the night before Christmas eve, so that the next morning “everything looked as pretty as the pictures on a calendar,” as Sarah Barnes said, when she arrived at Gray Lady’s door, bright and early, to help decorate the birds’ tree. Sarah did not enter the door, however, for she was joined on the porch by Goldilocks and Ann, and together they walked through the garden to Birdland. Jacob Hughes had swept paths from the house in and out among the trees through the garden. In Birdland he had used the single-horse snow-plough to scrape a track running from the bird lunch-counter, about the edge of the orchard, and then through the centre down to the old farm-house of the Swallow Chimney, that stood in the lower corner facing on what had been a cross-road, but was now a pretty grass-grown lane, with the snow wreathing the bushes of black alder, with its red, glistening berries, giving out a real Christmas feeling.