d out, but I think it most likely that they go to the
place they came from.

The Lovely Ladies have a song which they and the wind sing together as
they dance, and the way it is sung makes everyone that hears it, mad to
dance too. This is it:

"_The wind is shaking the Hoheria tree,
Cling, Maidens, cling!"
"I'll dance with you if you'll dance with me,
Swing, Maidens, swing!"
"So up with a windy rush we go,
Floating, fluttering, to and fro,"
"Sing for the joy of it, Maidens, Oh!
Sing, Maidens, sing!_"

The Piccaninnies simply love to watch the Lovely Ladies dancing, and
long to be able to dance in the same way. When they hear the song, their
little brown toes go fidgeting among the moss and leaves, and their
heads nod-nodding to the air.

[Illustration: "They dance on the wind."]

[Illustration: "They began working themselves up and down like mad."]

Once they found a Hoheria tree after all the Lovely Ladies had left it,
and now, they thought, was their chance. They swarmed all over the tree,
clutched the tips of the delicate branches, and began working themselves
up and down like mad.

It was great fun, but with their chubby little brown bodies, short legs,
and shock heads, it did not look quite the same thing, and three Bush
Babies riding that way on a good-natured kiwi, laughed so much (and even
the kiwi, which is a grave bird, looked up and smiled) that the
Piccaninnies, feeling rather foolish, dropped to the the ground and ran
away and hid in the fern.

THE GREAT RED ENEMY.

One day one of those tiresome picnic parties came again
to the bush, and after a great deal of stupid and rather terrifying
noise, during which every Piccaninny and Bush Baby and all the other
bush folk lay hidden away in utter silence, the people all went away
again, and the Wee Folk were free to come out of their hiding places and
turn over curiously the few things the party had left.

There was an empty meat tin which flashed so brightly that the
Piccaninnies took it for a helmet, and each in turn tried to wear it;
but it was so big that it simply hid them altogether, so very
regretfully they had to throw it away. Then there were a few crusts of
bread which quite by accident one of the boys discovered to be good to
eat. They finished every crumb of the bread and enjoyed it, but on the
whole agreed that fern root tasted nicer. There was an empty bottle
that nobody dared go near, for the