“’Course I do,” said Eliza, taken off her guard and at heart now provoked and ashamed at having her hat seen, “and I’ve got lots more kinds at home. Ma’s got feathers on her hat, too—tasty feathers. Miss Barker from New York that boarded with us gave ’em to her; they cost a lot and stick right up in a nice stiff long bunch. They’re called regrets, and they don’t grow round here, but they’re ever so stylish.” And Eliza held her nose in the air with a sniff of scorn, a vulgar travesty that the pounding of her heart belied. “I don’t think those stiff regret feathers in your mother’s hat are stylish,” said Sarah Barnes, quickly taking up the cudgels; “I think they look like fish bones!” Then Eliza began to cry, and both Goldilocks and Sarah looked distressed. Gray Lady hesitated a moment and then said, “Eliza, dear, I’m sorry that this has happened just now. It is not generally a good plan for us to criticise one another’s clothing or habits, but there are times when it is necessary. Sooner or later I should have told you the reasons why people who stop to think and have kind hearts are no longer willing to wear the feathers of wild birds, and I’m sure that presently, when you stop and think, you will see that it is so.” Then they all walked very quietly up to the library that had belonged to Goldilocks’ father, and when they were seated and had time to look about they saw that the walls above the book-cases were covered by pictures of birds in their natural colours. On the table at one end of the room were piled some books, and by this Gray Lady seated herself, her scrap-book by her elbow,—a book, by the way, with which, before another season, they were to become as well acquainted as with their friend herself. Tommy Todd could not take his eyes from a picture of a tall white bird, with long neck and legs and a graceful sweep of slender feathers that drooped from its back over the tail. Holding up his hand, which at school always means that you wish to ask a question, Tommy said, “Please, what is that bird’s name? There’s a big, dark, gray one, shaped something like it, that I’ve seen by the mill-pond, but it’s not half so pretty. I’ve never seen one like this, here.” “That bird,” said Gray Lady, “is the Snowy Heron, Egret, or _Re_gret Bird, as Eliza called it a few minutes ago, and I think that you will agree that the name is a very suitable one when I tell you the bird’s story.” V REASONS WHY When the children had satisfied their curiosity by looking about the room at the pictures and stuffed birds in cases as much as they wished and were comfortably seated, Gray Lady drew a chair into the midst of the group and began to talk, not a bit like a teacher in school, but as if she had dropped in among them to have a little chat.