Avrillia was leaning far out over the balcony, gazing down into
Nothing. She straightened up and turned around, looking at them with
eyes that hardly saw them.

"It didn't stick," she murmured.

"Avrillia! the suet!" cried Pirlaps, laying his hand on her arm and
shaking it ever so little. "The suet!"

He was not cross--he couldn't be cross with Avrillia--but Sara thought
he was for once almost half impatient. Avrillia's mind came back into
her beautiful eyes and she cried remorsefully,

"O Pirlaps, I forgot. Is it all gone? What will they think of me?"

"Every bit," said Pirlaps, relenting at once. "And Yassuh went to
sleep and burnt up a whole panful of crumbs."

"Oh, dear!" cried Avrillia, "how dreadful! The suet came quite a while
ago, but while I was slicing it I thought of a poem about snow; and
then I happened to think that maybe the air over the Verge might be a
little warmer than it is here, and so the poem might melt a little as
it fell, and, maybe, stick. But it didn't," she finished, growing
abstracted again.

"Too bad," said Pirlaps, peering down into Nothing with real sympathy
in his voice. Then, with a start, "But the suet, Avrillia?"

"Oh, let's go get it," cried Avrillia. "I laid it on my dressing-table
when I went to get a fresh handkerchief just before I sat down to