object of his
search that he stopped and asked Old Pipes if he had seen the Dryad.
The piper had not noticed the little fellow, and he looked down on
him with some surprise.

"No," he said, "I have not seen her, and I have been looking
everywhere for her."

"You!" cried the dwarf; "what do you wish with her?"

Old Pipes then sat down on a stone, so that he should be nearer the
ear of his small companion, and he told what the Dryad had done for
him.

When the Echo-dwarf heard that this was the man whose pipes he was
obliged to echo back every day, he would have slain him on the spot
had he been able; but, as he was not able, he merely ground his
teeth and listened to the rest of the story.

"I am looking for the Dryad now," Old Pipes continued, "on account
of my aged mother. When I was old myself, I did not notice how very
old my mother was; but now it shocks me to see how feeble and
decrepit her years have caused her to become; and I am looking for
the Dryad to ask her to make my mother younger, as she made me."

The eyes of the Echo-dwarf glistened. Here was a man who might help
him in his plans.

"Your idea is a good one," he said to Old Pipes, "and it does you
honor. But you should know that a Dryad can make no person younger
but one who lets her out of her tree. However, you can manage the
affair very easily. All you need do is to find the Dryad, tell her
what you want, and request her to step into her tree and be shut up
for a short time. Then you will go and bring your mother to the
tree; she will open it, and everything will be as you wish. Is not
this a good plan?"

"Excellent!" cried Old Pipes; "and I will go instantly and search
more diligently for the Dryad."

"Take me with you," said the Echo-dwarf. "You can easily carry me on
your strong shoulders; and I shall be glad to help you in any way
that I can."

"Now, then," said the little fellow to himself, as Old Pipes carried
him rapidly along, "if he persuades the Dryad to get into a
tree--and she is quite foolish enough to do it--and then goes away
to bring his mother, I shall take a stone or a club and I will break
off the key of that tree, so that nobody can ever turn it again.
Then Mistress Dryad will see what she has brought upon herself by
her behavior to me."

Before long they came to the great oak-tree in which the Dryad had
lived, and, at a distance, they saw that beautiful creature herself
coming toward them.

"How excellently wel