as half way to the top, clinging with toes and fingers.

"Bravo!" cried the Wind Creatures. Eric went up after her, often
slipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees, but as
resolute as his playmate. At last they gained the top. The Wind
Creatures had flown up and were waiting for them there, sitting
cross-legged with their purple wings folded down their backs.

The wall enclosed the garden of a very rich family. It was a formal
garden with straight walks, trellises, fountains, benches and neat
flower beds laid out in squares and circles, now piled high with
blossoming snow.

Just as the children reached the top of the wall, the door into the
garden from the stern gray mansion behind it opened and through it came
three people. First was a very tall lady all wrapped up in furs,--tails
and heads of the poor animals that had been slain to make them hanging
from her shoulders and down her back. Even the children could see that
her face was sour in spite of all its smiling. Then came a young man in
a stiff, funny hat, carrying a cane, beating up the snow flowers with it
as he passed the flower beds. And behind them walked--Helma, with her
gaze on the ground. That is why they did not know her at first, that and
her very strange clothes. She was dressed all in velvet and fur, and her
arms up to her elbows were hidden in a huge white muff. She swayed as
she walked on weird little high heels and the toes of her boots drew out
to long points, almost like a goblin's. Her hat was a velvet affair, so
awkward and heavy it seemed to weigh down her head, and her candleflame
hair was smothered under it. Is it any wonder that they did not know her
like that!

But when she walked close under the wall and they heard her voice they
knew her, and the Wind Creatures had to hold Ivra from jumping down and
throwing herself into her arms. "Wait," they whispered.

From their high place on the wall they could look down on the heads of
the three people, and hear all they were saying. They had never learned
that it is not fair to listen that way.

From all Helma said they could plainly see she was a prisoner. She was
pleading with the old woman. She was saying, "No, never, never, never,
in a thousand days and years will I ever be happy here. My place is in
the forest. Oh, how these heels bother!"

"Silly girl!" cried the old woman, smiling more than ever, and looking
more disagreeable than ever at the same time. "Your place