The dear Tree Mother!" their little teeth chattered in
ecstasy.

When all were ready they crowded up the straight starlit stairs. At the
top they crawled out through the sky door, one by one, into the
branches. Eric followed Ivra, and saw a great black moth-like thing
poised in air by the tree's top. But it was hollowed like a boat and a
shadowy woman was standing upright in it. A dark cloak covered her, but
the hood had fallen back, and her face in the starlight was very
beautiful and very young, younger even than Helma's, whose face Eric had
thought all that day too young and glad to be a mother's. How could this
be the Tree Man's mother, he wondered,--the Tree Girl's grandmother!
Then he saw that her hair was white, whiter than all the snow that lay
in the forest.

It was very cold kneeling there and clinging in the tip of the great
beech-tree. The forest below was still and dark. But the air and the
wintry star-filled sky were bright with a blue, cold light. After the
warmth at the heart of the tree, the cold was almost unbearable. Eric
longed to wave his arms about, and jump up and down to get warm, but he
had to cling, still and motionless, to the branches to keep from
falling.

At last Ivra whispered "It's our turn now," and taking Eric's hand, she
made him jump with her right out into cold space. For one awful instant
he thought they were both falling down, down to the ground. But they had
only dropped into the air-boat. The Tree Mother leaned forward and
pulled a blanket over them. Her eyes as she did it, looked straight into
Eric's. They were dark, and deep as the forest shadows. He began to
speak to tell her who he was, for her look was questioning. But she put
her finger to her lips. Then he noticed for the first time that every
one was silent. Even the Tree Man and his daughter who stood in the tree
top waving good-by spoke no words, only nodded and waved. The last Bird
Fairy fluttered noiselessly in. Eric lay back under the warm blanket,
snuggled against Ivra. A Bird Fairy nestled into the palm of each of his
hands. All was still and warm. The air-boat slipped away high and higher
over the tree-tops and on and on.

On a cold, starlit night, nestled in feathery warmth, to sail over the
dark tree-tops, high and higher and on and on--that is a wonderful
thing. And when the Tree Mother stands above you, wrapped in her dark
cloak with her face shining under her cloudy white hair, now and then
bending to tu