Now that they were so near Eric could see that their hair was blue, like the shadows on snow, and their faces a beautiful shining white. Their straight short garments were blue like shadows, too, and their arms, legs and feet were bare. But they did not seem conscious of the cold. Eric did not hear them speak, but they looked at each other as though they _were_ speaking, and then suddenly the little boy laughed merrily, as though the young girl had just told him something very amusing. Soon the girl turned and ran away up the hill. But the little boy was as quick as she and threw himself on the sled while she never slackened her pace, but drew him straight and fast up the steep slope. "I have never seen them before," Ivra whispered to Eric. "But mother has told me of them. They don't talk as we do you see. They don't _have_ to. They know each other's thoughts. They almost never leave their Stars. Do you think--perhaps, to-night they saw our slide shining, and wondered so much about it they had to come down? Even mother has never seen them. It was Tree Mother told her." Eric was very silent, for he had never seen such beautiful people. The little boy had had a face like a star, and great shining eyes. The young girl had been clear like the day, and without smiling her face had been brimmed with happiness. But now he felt Ivra trembling. She whispered again, "You know, Eric, it is wonderful for us to see them like this. Some day, mother says, we may get to be like them!" "And speak without words?" Eric asked wondering. "Yes, and more than that. We may be as _alive_ as they. Now we're only Forest people, and not all _that_ even--almost dreams. They are _real_!" Then she took his hand and drew him away. "I cannot look any more," she said; "can you? They are too beautiful!" Eric put his fingers to his eyes as he walked. "Yes, it's hard to see the ground now. My eyes ache a little." But how the children wished their mother were waiting for them in the little house to hear the tale! CHAPTER XIII NORA'S GRANDCHILDREN One afternoon Eric and Ivra started out for the Forest Children's moss village to play with them. But when they got there they found all the little houses deserted: not a Forest Child was to be found. They must have gone into some other part of the forest to play. So Ivra and Eric wandered on and on, a little lonely, a little tired of just each other for comrades, till at last they came to the very edge of the forest,--and there was Nora's farm, a rambling red brick house, with a barn twice its size behind it. Down in the pasture by the house half a dozen Snow Witches were dancing in a circle, now near, now far, all over the pasture, and sometimes right up to the farm-house windows.