“Good-by,” said the Beautiful Wicked Witch.  “Perhaps Eric will remember and come.  It’s a gorgeous bird, and I haven’t said he couldn’t free it.”

Then she slipped out into the snow flakes, turning to give them one dancing look over her shoulder before the door swung to.

Up flamed the candles, clear high flames when she was gone, and the fire crackled again, and took on new life, reaching higher and higher.

They got their supper together rather silently.  But just before going to sleep Ivra roused herself to say, “Let’s promise each other we won’t go to the Beautiful Wicked Witch’s fir until mother comes home,—­and we can tell her how jolly the Witch is, and what good stories she told us.”

“I don’t want to go anyway,” answered Eric, “unless I can free the bird.”—­But you see, he had not promised.

After a while, “Did you notice how pale her face was when she wasn’t laughing?” asked Eric.

“Yes, and not so beautiful then.  Mother may come in the night, and we never know it till morning!”

Soon they were asleep, a tired, but happy little girl and boy.

I think the Tree Mother sank down in her air-boat to look in at them and open the door wide, which they had forgotten, so they would have fresh air all night; but it was dark, and the room was shadowy, so perhaps it was only the wind.

CHAPTER IX

THE WIND HUNT

After all, Mother Helma was not there the next morning,—­nor the next, nor the next.  She did not come back for days and days and days.  Much happened before she returned, and much happened after.  I will tell you.

During the days the children roamed the forest looking for their mother.  They asked every one they could find whether he had seen her.  The Tree Man, his daughter, the Bird Fairies, and the Forest Children, not one of them had seen or heard of her since she went away.  But they all said with one accord that she would surely come back in her own time.  It was not wise to go seeking her so.  She loved them.  She would return.

“Wait and be patient,” they said.  “Time will bring Helma.”

But they were Forest People, who live long, long lives, and see far.  Eric was an Earth Child, and Ivra was not all a Forest Child.  So they found it hard to be wise and wait and do nothing but trust Helma and know she would return.

So they went wandering all the day.  They did not go home for meals, even, after a while, but ate with the Tree Man and his daughter or the Forest Children.  Sometimes as they walked through the forest, looking all about, even up into the trees for their mother, they would suddenly burst into play.  “Tag,” Ivra would cry, tapping Eric on the shoulder, and away she would fly, he after her, in a race that grew merrier and merrier as it ran on.  Ivra darted and twisted away when Eric thought he had her, rolling down little hills on the snow crust, climbing trees, jumping brooks until he was lucky enough to catch her by one of her pigtails at last, or snatch her flying skirt.  “Tag!” Then away he sped, and the game would go on for a happy while.