en you will go and bring your mother to the tree;
she will open it, and every thing will be as you wish. Is not this a
good plan?"

"Excellent!" cried Old Pipes; "and I will go instantly and search
more diligently for the Dryad."

"Take me with you," said the Echo-dwarf. "You can easily carry me on
your strong shoulders; and I shall be glad to help you in any way
that I can."

"Now, then," said the little fellow to himself, as Old Pipes carried
him rapidly along, "if he persuades the Dryad to get into a
tree,--and she is quite foolish enough to do it,--and then goes away
to bring his mother, I shall take a stone or a club and I will break
off the key of that tree, so that nobody can ever turn it again. Then
Mistress Dryad will see what she has brought upon herself by her
behavior to me."

Before long they came to the great oak-tree in which the Dryad had
lived, and, at a distance, they saw that beautiful creature herself
coming toward them.

"How excellently well every thing happens!" said the dwarf. "Put me
down, and I will go. Your business with the Dryad is more important
than mine; and you need not say any thing about my having suggested
your plan to you. I am willing that you should have all the credit of
it yourself."

Old Pipes put the Echo-dwarf upon the ground, but the little rogue
did not go away. He concealed himself between some low, mossy rocks,
and he was so much of their color that you would not have noticed him
if you had been looking straight at him.

When the Dryad came up, Old Pipes lost no time in telling her about
his mother, and what he wished her to do. At first, the Dryad
answered nothing, but stood looking very sadly at Old Pipes.

"Do you really wish me to go into my tree again?" she said. "I should
dreadfully dislike to do it, for I don't know what might happen. It
is not at all necessary, for I could make your mother younger at any
time if she would give me the opportunity. I had already thought of
making you still happier in this way, and several times I have waited
about your cottage, hoping to meet your aged mother, but she never
comes outside, and you know a Dryad cannot enter a house. I cannot
imagine what put this idea into your head. Did you think of it
yourself?"

"No, I cannot say that I did," answered Old Pipes. "A little dwarf
whom I met in the woods proposed it to me."

"Oh!" cried the Dryad; "now I see through it all. It is the scheme of
that vile Echo-dwarf--your