is where you
were born-in a fine house and wearing clothes like other people. Heels
indeed! Did you expect them to do any thing else but bother? Mine have
bothered for sixty years, but you haven't heard _me_ complain."

"Neither would I," Helma said, "if I didn't know about other kinds of
shoes that don't hurt. Those sandals I wore when you caught me didn't
hurt. Why can't I wear those, at least when I walk in the garden?"

"Well, you might," began the old woman, a little more kindly, and
smiling less, "if you promise always to put on the high heels before
coming into the drawing room--"

"No," said the young man sharply. "Let her once into the garden in her
sandals and she'll climb the wall and be off. I say that we give her no
chance to escape. After she has been to a hundred or so balls and worn
these beautiful and appropriate clothes long enough she'll be glad of
her luck, and nothing could drag her into the forest. Believe me!"

Now Helma stopped pleading, and laughed at the young man. "Do you think
high heels, or even a hat that weighs down my head like this horrid one
can keep me much longer from my little daughter, and that dear new
little boy? What they are doing without me all this time--I wonder!" She
stopped laughing to sigh.

The old woman took her hand not unkindly. "My poor, dear girl," she
said, "how many times must I tell you it is only a dream, that house in
the woods and the little girl and boy? They aren't really there at all,
you know. You have dreamed them. Come, cheer up. Be a brave girl. We
have parties and good times enough here, if you will only get into the
spirit of them, to make up for all your forest foolishness."

Helma answered in a low even voice, that showed well enough how sure she
was of the truth of what she was saying--"No, they are realer than you.
Ivra is realer than all the people in that mansion put together,
cousins, uncles, aunts, guests, servants and all. She is my little fairy
daughter."

"No," said the young man.

The wings of the Wind Creatures on the top of the wall rustled just then
in a gust of cold north wind. Helma threw up her head as at a familiar
sound, and her eyes slowly lifted to the faces of the children looking
down. For a minute she looked steadily at them without believing, and
then it was as though her pale face suddenly burst into song. But the
old woman and the young man were not looking at her and so they noticed
nothing. The young man said, "Th