the little moss houses opened and
there were the tousled heads of the Forest Children, their eyes blinking
sleepily against the gilded morning light.

"Thank you, thank you," Ivra cried back to the youngest Forest Child.
"Hurry and follow."

Before they had gone on their way five minutes more the Forest Children
were up with them, tugging at buckles and sandal strings as they ran,
begging not to be left behind. Soon they came to Big Pine Hill, a hill
deep in the forest with no trees but a giant pine at the top. The Wind
Creatures had built a slide there by brushing away the snow and leaving
a broad track of shining blue ice. Up under the pine were sleds enough
for every one, made all of woven hemlock branches. They needed no
runners for the ice was so slippery and the hill so steep _anything_
would go down it fast enough. Ivra's Forest Friends must have worked all
the day before to make those sleds--and now her shining face and clasped
hands were reward enough.

She was the first to try the hill. She threw herself on her sled and
down she flashed. At the bottom she tumbled off, and still on her knees
shouted up to Eric and the others at the top, "Oh, it's splendid! Come
on!"

Then the hill was covered with speeding sleds. The Bird Fairies had none
of their own, for they were so little they might have come to harm on
that hill. But they had just as good a time for all of that, catching
rides with the others, clinging to shoulders or heads or feet as it
happened.

Every one was there, even the Snow Witches who had not been invited.
They came whirling and dancing through the forest almost as soon as the
sliding had begun. Ivra gave them glad welcome in spite of their rough
ways and stinging hair. For she, the only one of all who were there,
liked them very well and had made them her comrades often and often on
windy winter days. And they, who cared for nobody, cared for her. "She
is not like anybody," they explained it to each other. "_She is a great
little girl_."

But they would not take Ivra's sled as she wanted them to. They had not
come to spoil her fun. Instead they raced down the hill behind her or
before her, pushing and pulling, their stinging hair in her face. But
that only made her cheeks very red, and she did not mind them at all.
Then she tried sliding down on her feet, with the long line of witches
pushing from behind, their hands on each other's shoulders. That was the
best fun of all, and almost al