ng beneath a
silver birch, his head among the star flowers.

He knew that Helma and Ivra had not wanted to wake him, but had gone
home when the moon set, and were waiting breakfast for him there now. So
he jumped up and ran home through the dew.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DEEPEST PLACE IN THE WOOD

It was on the hottest day of all the hot days of summer that Eric found
the deepest place in the Forest. He wandered into it while he was
looking for Wild Thyme. Ivra had been no good to him that day. She was
usually ready to play in any weather; but on this, the hottest day of
the year, she stayed indoors, where it was a little cooler, and lying on
the settle she drew paper dolls on birch bark, and afterwards cut them
out. Yes, even fairy children love paper dolls and Ivra loved them more
than most. Eric wanted her to go swimming in the stream, but he teased
her to in vain, for she was entranced with the dolls and would hardly
lift her eyes from them.

Helma was swinging in a vine swing she had made for herself high in a
tree above the garden. One of the Little People was perched on a leaf
just over her head, and they were chattering together like equals. Their
eager voices floated down to Eric standing disconsolate near the door
stone. But Helma usually knew when her children were in trouble, no
matter how tiny the trouble, and so before Eric had stood there long or
dug up more than a bushel of earth with his bare toes, she leaned over
the nest and called to him.

"Why don't you go and play with Wild Thyme? She doesn't mind the heat.
Every one else is staying quiet till sundown."

Wild Thyme was a happy thought, and Eric walked away in search of her.
But she was in the very last place he would have thought to look on such
a scorching day, and that is how he missed her. She was lying full
length on the hot burnt grass in the field at the Forest's edge, loving
the heat and sunshine, which covered her like a mantle. If Eric had seen
her it is probable he would not have known her or stopped to look twice.
He would have thought her just a little patch of the flower that is
named for her.

So he wandered on and on, looking high and low and all about for her,
and he went deeper and deeper into the Forest. The deeper he went the
cooler it became, for the forest roof kept out the sunshine. The light
grew dimmer and dimmer too. Eric had never been so far in before and
everything was strange to him.

He saw no Forest Peop