scarcely good enough for those quills. You see, the Almighty made and
coloured those Himself; and He puts the same kind on Phoebe Simms's
peacocks that He put on the head of the family in the forests of Ceylon,
away back in the beginning. Any old manufactured quill from New York
or Chicago will do for your little twenty-dollar hat. You should have
something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills that are
made by the Creator."

How those girls did laugh! One of them walked with Elnora to the
auditorium, sat beside her during exercises, and tried to talk whenever
she dared, to keep Elnora from seeing the curious and admiring looks
bent upon her.

For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime of all sorts
going on behind Elnora's back that day. Happy with her books, no one
knew how much she saw, and from her absorption in her studies it was
evident she cared too little to notice.

After school she went again to the home of the Bird Woman, and together
they visited the swamp and carried away more specimens. This time Elnora
asked the Bird Woman to keep the money until noon of the next day, when
she would call for it and have it added to her bank account. She slowly
walked home, for the visit to the swamp had brought back full force the
experience of the morning. Again and again she examined the crude little
note, for she did not know what it meant, yet it bred vague fear. The
only thing of which Elnora knew herself afraid was her mother; when with
wild eyes and ears deaf to childish pleading, she sometimes lost control
of herself in the night and visited the pool where her husband had sunk
before her, calling his name in unearthly tones and begging of the swamp
to give back its dead.