We have seen something about the origin of the sheets and the blankets of Prue's bed. But what about the mattress and the pillows and the framework. Just as before there could be the blankets there had to be sheep with fleece on their backs, so before there could be this mattress there had to be horses, for it was stuffed with horsehair, the long hairs combed from their tails chiefly in Russia, South America, and Australia. But, you say, the hair in a horse's tail is long and straight, while the hair that one can pull out of mattresses is short and curly. That is true; but the curl has been put there artificially, for a number of processes have to be gone through between the combing of the tail and Prue's slumbers on the mattress, and curling the hair is one of the most important, or there would be no spring to it. And just as sheep and horses had to live before there could be blankets or mattresses, so did geese have to cackle over commons and be killed for the market before Prue could lay her head on that soft pillow. The goose is a familiar enough bird; a much rarer bird contributed to keep Prue warm at nights by supplying her with the beautiful soft quilt that lay on the top of her bed--the eider duck. The eider duck is a bird that lives in very cold regions, such as Spitzbergen and Greenland and Iceland and the north of Norway. The down comes from her breast and is plucked by herself to cover her eggs and keeps them warm. Having marked down an eider-duck's nest, the down-hunter takes away all its contents, and this he does again and again at intervals of a few days until he guesses that the eider-duck's patience is almost exhausted. He then leaves the eggs and down undisturbed, for fear that she will lay no more. The business of collecting down has become so important that artificial nests are made to which the birds gladly come, and in which, in spite of the way they are treated, they bravely go on laying eggs. From each of these nests half a pound of down is collected each breeding season; but before it is ready to be put into quilts it has to be washed and cleaned to such an extent that the half-pound has dwindled to a quarter. It all does not sound very gentlemanly, does it? but there are worse things than that in store for us. Well-to-do little girls in London cannot be made comfortable without a good deal of suffering going on in other parts of the world.