before dusk. For a finishing touch
Helma sewed two soft little brown feathers she had picked up in the snow
one on either side of the cap,--which gave Eric, small as they were and
soft as they were, a look of flying.

Then nothing remained but the sandals, and because Eric was well rested
by then, he was allowed to help at them. They were cut from the strip of
brown leather, and Helma showed Eric how to shape them and sew them
himself. So after supper he stood attired, all in brown, a pale, happy
child, ready for his first party.

Ivra and Eric were to go to the Tree Man's party alone, for Helma was
going far away from the wood to spend the evening with a comrade. It was
to be a very long walk for her, for she put on her heaviest sandals and
pulled the hood of her cloak up over her hair.

She walked with the children as far as Little Pine Hill. It was a low
hill, bare of trees, except for a dwarfed pine on the top. In summer the
slope was slippery with the needles of the little pine, but now it was
several inches deep in snow. It was bright starlight, and far away down
an avenue of trees, Eric saw shining open fields, and beyond them the
lights of the town.

There Helma said good-by. Eric looking up at her in the starlight saw
her hair like pale firelight under her dark hood and her eyes so calm
and friendly. He clung to her hand for a minute.

"Have a good time," she told them. Ivra leapt away and Eric after her.
Helma stood watching until their little forms had flickered out of sight
among tree-shadows. Then she sped down the starlit avenue towards the
open fields and the town.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE HEART OF A TREE

Ivra and Eric ran until the stars were almost lost to them under the snow
roof of the forest. Once Eric stopped to tie his sandal-string which had
loosened and was bothering him. Then the stillness of the world startled
him.

He cried to Ivra to wait, and she came back to his side. "Don't be
frightened," she comforted. "There are Forest People near us. They would
walk with us, for some of them are going to the party too, but they are
afraid of you. That's why they've drawn their white hoods over their
heads and keep away. Once we are inside the Tree Man's, though, it will
be all right. They'll come in too, and not be afraid any more."

"But why are they afraid of me?" asked Eric, tugging at his
sandal-string. "No one else has ever been afraid of me. Even Juno, Mrs.
Freg's cat, who was af