ed the Little Ones, and would like to kill them, only she
could not find them. I asked how they knew that; Lona answered that she
had always known it. If the giant-girl came to look for them, they must
hide hard, she said. When I told them I should go and ask her why she
hated them, they cried out,

"No, no! she will kill you, good giant; she will kill you! She is an
awful bad-giant witch!"

I asked them where I was to go then. They told me that, beyond the
baby-forest, away where the moon came from, lay a smooth green country,
pleasant to the feet, without rocks or trees. But when I asked how I was
to set out for it.

"The moon will tell you, we think," they said.

They were taking me up the second branch of the river bed: when they saw
that the moon had reached her height, they stopped to return.

"We have never gone so far from our trees before," they said. "Now mind
you watch how you go, that you may see inside your eyes how to come back
to us."

"And beware of the giant-woman that lives in the desert," said one of
the bigger girls as they were turning, "I suppose you have heard of
her!"

"No," I answered.

"Then take care not to go near her. She is called the Cat-woman. She is
awfully ugly--AND SCRATCHES."

As soon as the bigger ones stopped, the smaller had begun to run back.
The others now looked at me gravely for a moment, and then walked slowly
away. Last to leave me, Lona held up the baby to be kissed, gazed in
my eyes, whispered, "The Cat-woman will not hurt YOU," and went without
another word. I stood a while, gazing after them through the moonlight,
then turned and, with a heavy heart, began my solitary journey. Soon the
laughter of the Little Ones overtook me, like sheep-bells innumerable,
rippling the air, and echoing in the rocks about me. I turned again, and
again gazed after them: they went gamboling along, with never a care in
their sweet souls. But Lona walked apart with her baby.

Pondering as I went, I recalled many traits of my little friends.

Once when I suggested that they should leave the country of the bad
giants, and go with me to find another, they answered, "But that would
be to NOT ourselves!"--so strong in them was the love of place that
their country seemed essential to their very being! Without ambition or
fear, discomfort or greed, they had no motive to desire any change; they
knew of nothing amiss; and, except their babies, they had never had a
chance of helping any one