e neighbors have talked about us enough
already for all your queer ideas and doings. So you'll wear no sandals,
no, nor sleep with your skylight open, as you're always asking, nor go
one step outside the wall until you have come to your senses and are
more like other people. So there!"

But Helma laughed, her head thrown back, so that the children could look
into her happy eyes and see the glow of her short hair under her
grotesque hat.

"Keep your keys, cousin," she said, "and your old skylight keep shut
tight as tight. I shall find a way out. But my children must be patient,
and Ivra must teach Eric to keep his face and body clean. They must not
forget meal-times, and when anything goes wrong, or they think it is
going wrong, they must ask the Tree Man's advice. I will find a way to
them soon. They must keep happy and wait."

She said all that slowly and distinctly, her eyes smiling into theirs.

"What silly talk," laughed the sour old lady. "Just as though you were
making a speech. Well, it must be luncheon time now, and high time we
were changing our frocks. Wear your gray velvet, Helma, and don't forget
to put on stockings to match. There's to be strawberry ice to-day,--and
goose to begin with of course. Cook says she has never seen a
tenderer--"

The old lady went on talking about the wonderful luncheon they were to
have until they were out of hearing. But the children on the gray wall
could see that Helma was going in differently from the way she had come
out. Her head was high, and she stepped out in her funny high heeled
boots as though she were walking in sandals. At the little door into the
mansion she turned and waved her queer great muff to the children and
the Wind Creatures, and they heard her laugh.

But when she was gone, and the door was shut and locked--they heard the
great key scrape--Eric turned joyfully to Ivra. She was staring intently
at the closed door, her face very pale. Suddenly she buried her head in
her arms and burst into sobs, hoarse, jerky sobs, the first and the last
time Eric was ever to hear her cry. Eric and the Wind Children sat
cross-legged and waited. Soon she stopped and wiped her face on her
sleeve.

"She is locked in, but she _will_ find a way home," she said, almost
laughing. "How glad and how surprised she was to see us! It was almost
as though she had begun to believe all their talk about dreams, until
she heard the Wind Creatures' wings!"

The Wind Creatures took