"Ha--ha--he!" said a little voice again. Somebody was laughing. Where could he be? Glancing round quickly the children saw a little man about three feet high, dressed in green, wearing a long peaked cap with a wreath of tiny oak-leaves around it. He looked very strong, although he was small, and he stuck his arms out akimbo in a curious angular way like the branches of an oak-tree. "How did you know that trees were alive?" he asked the children. They were embarrassed by the question. "Why, of course we know they are not dead, unless they are cut down," they said. The little man shuddered; then he began to wave his arms about wildly. "_Let_ them try to cut me down, I'll knock them down. I'll fall on them and crush their bones. I'll smash them like this stone!" Here he gave a stone that stood near by, such a tremendous whack that sparks flew out of it. "Don't smash us, please, Mr Tree Man," said Lottchen trembling. "No fear, little Miss Lottchen, no fear, you're a nice little thing, you are; one can see that to look at you. You would _never_ cut me down, would you?" "Why, of course not," said Lotty. "_I_ should not dream of such a thing either," said Trudel. "But may we ask who you are?" Trudel continued, "You are surely not a tree?" "Well, it's like this," said the little man; "I'm a tree, and the tree's me!" "_I_," said Trudel, correcting him, "would be more correct." "Rubbish," said the little man, "Pedantic rot!--the tree's _me_, I repeat. Every tree has its gnome or elf; they used to call us dryads in old times; but nowadays people are getting so cock-sure of knowing everything, that they can't see what is going on right under their noses. Trees are never still," he continued; "they are always moving. "'Where there is movement, there is life, Where there is life, there is thought, Where there is thought, there is individuality.' "Do you follow me? That is logically expressed." "You forget we are only children, Mr Tree Man; you are talking too grown-upy for us. Father talks like that sometimes; but then we don't listen," they replied. "Well," continued the gnome, "in every tree there either lives a jolly fellow like me or a lovely lady fairy. Yes," he said in a sentimental tone, "I, too, old and tough though I am, I, too, have known love." "Who is she?" asked Trudel eagerly. "Alas! I can never reach her; my old bones are too stiff and unbendable. She is a graceful larch-tree in all the glory of her youth. You may see her yonder!" He sat down and sighed deeply. The children looked in the direction that the gnome had indicated, and there they saw a larch-tree on which the sunlight had just fallen. It was exquisitely dressed in a robe of delicate green and--was it only fancy?--for one moment the children thought that they saw a lovely lady with flowing tresses that gleamed golden in the sunlight, and large starry eyes. As they gazed, she melted into the blue mist which shimmers always between the forest trees.