‘I wonder,’ ran his thought, ‘why poets need invent Dryads when such an incomparable revelation lies plain in one of the commonest of trees like this?’ And, at the same moment, he saw Nixie dart past between the fir trees and the birch, as though the very Dryad he was slighting had slipped out to chide him. Her hair spread in the sunshine like leaves. In the world of trees here, surely, was the very essence of what is feminine caught and imprisoned. Whatever of grace and wonder emanate from the face and figure of a young girl to enchant and bewitch here found expression in the silver stem and branches, in the running limbs so slender, in the twigs that bent with their cataracts of flying hair. Seen against the dark pine-wood, this little birch tree laughed and danced; over that silver skin ran, positively, smiles; from the facets of those dainty leaves twinkled mischief and the joys of innocence. Here, in a word, was Nixie herself in the terms of tree-dom; and, as he watched, the wind swept out the branches towards him in a cluster of rustling leaves,—and at the same instant Nixie shot laughing to his side. For a second he hardly knew whether it was the child or the silver birch that nestled down beside him and began to murmur in his ear. ‘This is it, you see,’ she was saying; ‘and there’s your wind of inspiration blowing now.’ ‘We shall have to alter the first verse then,’ he said gravely: ‘The winds of inspiration blow, Yet _never_ pass me by.’ ‘Of course, of course,’ she whispered, listening half to her uncle, half to the rustle in the branches. ‘And now,’ she added presently, ‘you can always come and write your poetry here, and it will be very-wonderfulindeed poetry, you see. And if you leave a bit of paper on the tree you’ll find it in the morning covered with all sorts of things in very fine writing—oh, but _very very_ fine writing, so small that no one can see it except you and me. One of the Little Winds we saw, you know, will twine round it and leave marks. And the big pine is you and the birch is me, isn’t it?’ she ended with sudden conviction. The game, of course, was after her own heart. Up she sprang then suddenly again, picked a spray of leaves from a hanging branch, and brought it back to him. ‘And here’s a bit of me for a present, so that you can’t ever forget,’ she said with a gravity that held no smile. And she fastened it with much tugging and arranging in his buttonhole. ‘A bit of my tree, and so of me.’ ‘Then I might leave a bit of paper in the water too,’ he remarked slyly on their way home, ‘so as to get the thoughts of the stream.’ ‘Easily,’ she said, ‘only it must be wrapped up in something. I’ll get Jonah’s sponge-bag and lend it you. Only you must promise faithfully to return it in case we go to the seaside in the summer.’ ‘And perhaps some of those tears we were talking about will stick on it and leave their marks before they go on to the sea,’ he suggested.