raid of 'most every one, liked me and jumped into
my lap. Why are the Forest People afraid?"

"Well, they are Forest People, you see, and you are an Earth Child.
Mother and I weren't afraid of you, of course, because,--we aren't
exactly Forest People."

Ivra paused and the silence came back. Eric looked up at her.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"No, no." But she began to jump up and down and knock her heels together
to get warm. Eric still struggled with his lacings. Ivra stopped jumping
and went down on her knees in the snow to straighten them out for him.
Eric's fingers were awkward with knots, and besides, now, they were numb
with the cold. But Ivra had everything right in a minute. She crossed
the strings over his instep and tied them snugly above his ankle almost
before he could think. Then they ran on. In starlit spaces Eric caught
glimpses of hurrying figures, so swift and light he could not tell
whether they walked or flew. Their cloaks sparkled white in starlight
until he was not sure but they might be starbeams, and not Forest People
at all.

One suddenly started up just at his elbow, and was away like the wind.
Ivra began to run and to call after it. "Wild Star! Silly Wild Star!
It's only I, Ivra, and my playmate. Wait for us!"

Eric followed her, running as fast as he could, but the snow held him
back, and all the trees in the forest seemed to gather to stand in his
way. Ivra came back to him, laughing. "They are so afraid of you! No one
will come near us until the Tree Man is there to protect him."

Soon they came to a big beech-tree standing in an open space with
smaller beeches making a circle around it. The starlight showed,
strangely, a narrow door in the trunk. Ivra pushed it open and Eric
followed in after her, wondering at going into a tree.

They were on a flight of stairs lighted by starlight from a window
somewhere high up. At the head of the flight they came to a door, and
through the crack beneath it streamed a warmer light than starlight.
Ivra opened that door gayly, and through it with her, Eric went to his
first party.

It was the jolliest room in all the world. The firelight and candlelight
did not reach so far as the walls, but left them in soft darkness. So
Eric had the feeling that the room was really much too large to be
inside of a tree. But in spite of its bigness, it was very cozy. The
fireplace was in the middle of the floor, just a great hollowed boulder,
heaped with crackli