Ivra and Eric were to go to the Tree Man’s party alone, for Helma was going far away from the wood to spend the evening with a comrade.  It was to be a very long walk for her, for she put on her heaviest sandals and pulled the hood of her cloak up over her hair.

She walked with the children as far as Little Pine Hill.  It was a low hill, bare of trees, except for a dwarfed pine on the top.  In summer the slope was slippery with the needles of the little pine, but now it was several inches deep in snow.  It was bright starlight, and far away down an avenue of trees, Eric saw shining open fields, and beyond them the lights of the town.

There Helma said good-by.  Eric looking up at her in the starlight saw her hair like pale firelight under her dark hood and her eyes so calm and friendly.  He clung to her hand for a minute.

“Have a good time,” she told them.  Ivra leapt away and Eric after her.  Helma stood watching until their little forms had flickered out of sight among tree-shadows.  Then she sped down the starlit avenue towards the open fields and the town.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE HEART OF A TREE

Ivra and Eric ran until the stars were almost lost to them under the snow roof of the forest.  Once Eric stopped to tie his sandal-string which had loosened and was bothering him.  Then the stillness of the world startled him.

He cried to Ivra to wait, and she came back to his side.  “Don’t be frightened,” she comforted.  “There are Forest People near us.  They would walk with us, for some of them are going to the party too, but they are afraid of you.  That’s why they’ve drawn their white hoods over their heads and keep away.  Once we are inside the Tree Man’s, though, it will be all right.  They’ll come in too, and not be afraid any more.”

“But why are they afraid of me?” asked Eric, tugging at his sandal-string.  “No one else has ever been afraid of me.  Even Juno, Mrs. Freg’s cat, who was afraid of ’most every one, liked me and jumped into my lap.  Why are the Forest People afraid?”

“Well, they are Forest People, you see, and you are an Earth Child.  Mother and I weren’t afraid of you, of course, because,—­we aren’t exactly Forest People.”

Ivra paused and the silence came back.  Eric looked up at her.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, no.”  But she began to jump up and down and knock her heels together to get warm.  Eric still struggled with his lacings.  Ivra stopped jumping and went down on her knees in the snow to straighten them out for him.  Eric’s fingers were awkward with knots, and besides, now, they were numb with the cold.  But Ivra had everything right in a minute.  She crossed the strings over his instep and tied them snugly above his ankle almost before he could think.  Then they ran on.  In starlit spaces Eric caught glimpses of hurrying figures, so swift and light he could not tell whether they walked or flew.  Their cloaks sparkled white in starlight until he was not sure but they might be starbeams, and not Forest People at all.