at her. "I'll make you suffer for this. You shall find out what
it is to heap injury and insult upon one like me, and to snatch from
him the repose that he has earned by long years of toil." And,
shaking his head savagely, he hurried back to the rocky hill-side.

Every afternoon the merry notes of the pipes of Old Pipes sounded
down into the valley and over the hills and up the mountain-side; and
every afternoon when he had echoed them back, the little dwarf grew
more and more angry with the Dryad. Each day, from early morning till
it was time for him to go back to his duties upon the rocky
hill-side, he searched the woods for her. He intended, if he met her,
to pretend to be very sorry for what he had said, and he thought he
might be able to play a trick upon her which would avenge him well.
One day, while thus wandering among the trees, he met Old Pipes. The
Echo-dwarf did not generally care to see or speak to ordinary people;
but now he was so anxious to find the object of his search, that he
stopped and asked Old Pipes if he had seen the Dryad. The piper had
not noticed the little fellow, and he looked down on him with some
surprise.

"No," he said; "I have not seen her, and I have been looking
everywhere for her."

"You!" cried the dwarf, "what do you wish with her?"

Old Pipes then sat down on a stone, so that he should be nearer the
ear of his small companion, and he told what the Dryad had done for
him.

When the Echo-dwarf heard that this was the man whose pipes he was
obliged to echo back every day, he would have slain him on the spot
had he been able; but, as he was not able, he merely ground his teeth
and listened to the rest of the story.

"I am looking for the Dryad now," Old Pipes continued, "on account of
my aged mother. When I was old myself, I did not notice how very old
my mother was; but now it shocks me to see how feeble and decrepit
her years have caused her to become; and I am looking for the Dryad
to ask her to make my mother younger, as she made me."

The eyes of the Echo-dwarf glistened. Here was a man who might help
him in his plans.

"Your idea is a good one," he said to Old Pipes, "and it does you
honor. But you should know that a Dryad can make no person younger
but one who lets her out of her tree. However, you can manage the
affair very easily. All you need do is to find the Dryad, tell her
what you want, and request her to step into her tree and be shut up
for a short time. Th