He could not find the catch.  The window was draped with cobwebs and dusty with the dust of years.  It looked as though it had never been opened.

The little red-headed girl put her hand on his arm.  She was laughing.  “Don’t be silly,” she said.  “There’s no one by the white birch.  You’re imagining.”

“Why, look!  Of course she’s there!” Eric was impatient.  “She’s moving now, waving to us.  Of course you see her!”

“Yes,” said the jolliest of the boys.  “We do see it—­faintly.  We’ve seen it before too,—­a kind of a shadow on the snow.  But father says it’s nothing to mind.  Imaginings.  Nothing real, just spots in our eyes or something.”

Then Eric remembered all that Ivra had told him.  She was half fairy.  People could see her if they looked hard enough.  But they were not apt to believe their own eyes when they had looked.  That was dreadful for her.  She had not said so, but he had guessed it from her face when she told him.  Well, well, now he understood a little better.  These were Earth Children, with shadows in their eyes.  Ivra could never be their playmate.

But he could see her well enough because his eyes were clear.  And presently he would run out to her and they would go home together.  But just now it was jolly and cozy here in the barn, and these Earth Children were good fun.  He hoped she would wait for him, but if she did not he would find his way alone easily enough.

“You don’t really believe in it, do you?” the red-headed girl was asking.  “If you do,—­better not.  Grown-ups will laugh at you.”

“Nora, your grandmother, won’t laugh,” said Eric.  “She knows Ivra well enough, and Helma, too.”

“Oh, yes,” said the jolliest boy.  “But she is queer.  We love her, and she’s a fine grandmother, I can tell you.  And she tells the best stories.  But she’s queer just the same, and she can’t fool us.”

“Let’s go in and get some cookies from her,” said the other boy.  “They must be done by now.”

So up they hopped, and without another look towards the shadow out on the snow by the white birch, jumped down the hole, and ran out of the barn into the kitchen.

Nora was there knitting by a table, two big pans of cookies just out of the oven cooling in front of her.

How good they smelled!  Eric had never tasted hot ginger cookies before, and when Nora gave him one, a big round one all for his own, he almost danced with delight.  He perched on the edge of the table and ate that one and many another before he was done.

“This boy, grandma,” began the red-headed girl.

“His name is Eric,” interrupted Nora, handing him another cookie.  “I know him very well.”

“Well, he saw It while we were looking out of the barn window!  And he said It was real and his playmate, and he wanted to call It in to tell us stories!”

“Don’t say ‘It,’” said Nora.  “Her name is ‘Ivra.’  But of course you can’t play with her.  She isn’t an Earth Child.  She’s a fairy.  So don’t say anything about it to your father when he comes home to-night.  It would make him cross.”