A little old boat lay tied up to the bare roots of the beech-tree. Johannes was strictly forbidden ever to get into it. Oh! how strong was the temptation this evening! The clouds were parting into a grand gateway, through which the sun would sink to rest. Shining ranks of small clouds gathered on each side like life-guards in golden armour. The pool glowed back at them, and red rays flashed like arrows between the water-reeds. Johannes very slowly untied the rope that moored the boat to the beech-root. Oh, to float out there in the midst of that glory! Presto had already jumped into the boat; and before his master knew what he was doing, the reeds had pushed it out, and they were drifting away together towards the setting sun. Johannes lay in the bows staring into the heart of the cavern of light. 'Wings!' thought he. 'Oh, for wings now, and I should be there!' The sun was gone. The clouds were of fire. The sky in the east was deep blue. A row of willows grew on the bank. Their tiny silvery leaves stood motionless in the still air, looking like pale green lace against the dark background. Hark! What was that? A breath flew over the surface of the pool--like a faint gust of wind making a little groove in the water. It came from the sand-hills, from the cloud-cavern. When Johannes looked round he saw a large blue dragon-fly sitting on the edge of the boat. He had never seen one so large. It settled there, but its wings quivered in a large circle; it seemed to Johannes that the tips of them made a ring of light. 'It must be a glow-worm dragon-fly,' thought he, 'and they are very seldom seen.' But the circle grew wider and wider, and the wings fluttered so fast that Johannes saw them only as a mist. And by degrees he saw out of the mist two dark eyes gleaming, and a slender, shining figure in a pale blue dress sat in the place where the dragon-fly had been. Its fair hair was crowned with a garland of white convolvulus, and on its shoulders were gauzy insect-wings glittering like a soap-bubble, with a thousand colours. A shiver of delight tingled through Johannes. Here was a miracle! 'Will you be my friend?' he whispered. It was an odd way of addressing a stranger, but this was not a common case. And he had a feeling as though he had always known this strange sky-blue creature. 'Yes, Johannes!' he heard, and the voice sounded like the rustling of the sedges in the evening breeze, or the whisper of rain on the leaves in the wood. 'What is your name?' asked Johannes. 'I was born in the bell of a bindweed flower. Call me Windekind.'[1] And Windekind laughed and looked so kindly into Johannes' eyes that he felt strangely happy. 'To-day is my birthday,' Windekind went on, 'I was born close to this spot. The last rays of the sun and the first beams of the moon are my father and mother. People in Holland call the sun _she_, but that is not right. The sun is my father.' Johannes made up his mind to call the sun _he_ in school to-morrow.