The hum of the spinning-wheel was silent as the grave, the grail-hutch was empty, and they had had to feed on berries like the birds. When things were at their worst the clouds left off raining, the weather brightened, the sun shone out, and the little brown Piskeys came back to the moors. Finding out how matters were in the little moorland cottage, they came outside the door and laughed their gay little laugh once more. They laughed so much and so funnily that Grannie Tredinnick, weak as she was, couldn't help laughing to save her life; and when they saw her rise up from her chair and go over to the spinning-wheel and make the wheel whirl, they were delighted and laughed again. The weather not only changed for the better, but warm soft days came, and the yellow-hammers and the black and white stone-chats must have thought summer had come again, and they sang their bright little songs, and the larks went up singing into the blue of the winter sky. Tamsin felt better than she had been for months, and became so well and cheerful, what with the brighter weather, the music of the birds, and the free laughter of the Dinky Men, that she was able to spin from morning shine till evening dark, and very soon she had spun all the wool she had. She sent it in a farmer's cart to St. Columb, and the farmer's man who took it for her brought back a great big bag of flour and some more wool to spin. But when that was all paid for, and the rent money put aside, all her earnings were gone, which made the good old woman very sad, for she wanted to make a little Christmas cake for Phillida. Christmas was on its way, and Phillida, like most children, looked forward to it; why, she could hardly have told, except that it was the Great Festival of the Nativity, and that Grannie always told her of the nice Christmasses she had had when she was a croom [12] of a cheeld, and that her mother always made her a Christmas cake, with a little bird on top, to remind her of the Great White Birds which sang when the Babe was born. When Christmas drew near Phillida could think and talk of nothing else but the beautiful Christmasses Grannie had had when she was a little maid, and of the Christmas cake with the little bird on top her mother had made for her. A few days before Christmas, as she and her grandmother were sitting down to their dinner of grail-bread, she said: 'Christmas Eve will soon be here now, Grannie. Do you think you can make me a little Christmas cake with a little cake-bird on top like those you had? Ever such a dinky cake and ever such a dinky bird will do, Grannie,' she added, as the old woman shook her head, 'just to see what a Christmas cake tastes like and the little cake-bird looks like.'