rple frock and her legs were scratched
as though she had remembered her dance only the last minute and come
plunging the shortest way through bushes, which was true.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.

Every one except the Tree Man was dancing, bewitched in the moonlight,
all over the grassy space around the great tree. The grass was cool and
refreshing under Eric's bare feet, and he often dug his bare toes into
the soft earth at its roots as he leapt or ran just to make sure he was
on earth at all. For he felt as though he were swimming in moonlight, or
at least treading it.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.

When the Tree Girl's music stopped between dances, then it would go on
in Eric's head. It was just the sound of the night after all. Once Eric
noticed that the Beautiful Wicked Witch was dancing next to him in the
circle but he was not afraid of her there with the others, and in bright
moonlight. And she was plotting no ill. Her face was sparkling with
delight and she had utterly forgotten herself in the dance.

When the great moon hung just above them, and shadows were few and far
between, the Tree Mother came walking through the Forest, quieter and
more beautiful than the moon. Wild Thyme ran to her and laid her bushy
head against her breast. For Wild Thyme only of all the Forest People
loved her without awe. The Tree Mother put her hand on Wild Thyme's head
and stood to watch the dancing. Her robe gleamed like frost, and her
hair was a pool of light above her head.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmm.

Wild Thyme jumped back into the dance and the Tree Mother stood alone.
But although she stood as still as a moonbeam under the tree, she made
Eric think of dancing more than all the others put together. It was her
eyes. The thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm was in them, and the rest
of that night Eric felt as though the music-instrument the Tree Girl was
swinging was silent, and that all the music flowed from Tree Mother.

But Eric, after all, was only an Earth Child, and his legs got very
tired in spite of the music and the moonlight. So at last he slipped out
of the circle, and stumbling with weariness and sleepiness went to Tree
Mother. She picked him up in her arms, and the minute his head touched
her shoulder he was sound asleep, the music at last hushed in his head.

When he woke it was summer dawn. The birds were flitting above in the
tree-boughs and making high singing. He was alone, lyi