Before noon every one was very hungry.  Then the littlest Forest Child said, “Follow me.  The Tree Girl has gone ahead.”

It was true, she had slipped away when no one noticed.

The littlest Forest Child led them away to a little valley-place where hemlock boughs had been spread to make a floor and raised on three sides to make a shelter.  When they had come close enough for Ivra to see what it was perched so big and white in the middle of the hemlock floor she stopped and sighed with joy while she clasped her hands.

It was a beautiful frosted birthday cake with nine brave candles of all colors and burning steadily, just the kind of cake her mother had always baked for her birthdays.—­Only last year there had been eight candles.  She had not hoped for this final delight.  She ran quickly forward and was the first to kneel down by it.  The Tree Girl was there waiting, and now Ivra knew it was the cake that she had been carrying so secretly under her cloak.

The Snow Witches did not follow into that shelter.  They have a great fear of shelters, you must know, for when forced into them they quickly lose their fierceness, and their fierceness is their greatest pride.  But before they left the party one of them came close to Eric, so close that tears were whipped into his eyes and quickly froze on his lashes.  “Take this to your little comrade,” shes said, thrusting a box made of pine cones into his hands.  “It’s for her to keep her paper dolls in.  We witches made it.”

Then all the witches went screeching and swirling away through the forest, and Ivra, Eric and the others settled down to the business of eating the birthday cake.

But first the Tree Girl, who is very sensible, insisted that they eat some nuts and apples.  Indeed, she would allow no one a bite of the wonderful cake until he had eaten at least one apple and twenty nuts.

Before Ivra cut the cake the others blew out the candles, one after another, and made her a wish in turn for every candle.  The Tree Girl wished her a bright new year, the Bird Fairies that her mother would soon return, the Wind Creatures that she would keep her gay heart forever, the Forest Children that she would become the most famous story teller in the Forest World.

And then it was Eric’s turn.  He had never been to a birthday party before, and never had he made a wish for some one else.  So he was a little puzzled.  But at last he had an idea and cried, “I wish that your hair will grow golden and curly before to-morrow morning.”  All princesses Ivra had ever told him about had curly golden hair, and though she had never said it, Eric had suspected for some time that Ivra would like that kind of hair herself.  Then he puffed his cheeks and blew out his candle, a fat green one.  Ivra laughed.

“The Snow Witches would never let me keep curly hair,” she said.  “They’d whip it straight in an hour.”

That reminded Eric of the pine cone box and he gave it to her and told her about it.  She was almost as delighted with that as with the cake.