"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." "But it doesn't make you cross," laughed the jolliest boy. "And so won't you tell us some stories about it now. You know,--the little house in the wood, the Tree Man, the Forest Children, Helma, Ivra and all the rest of it." "Do tell us a story," begged the other two. So Nora put down her knitting, and taking the cat on her lap, a great sleepy white fellow who had been purring by the stove, she began to tell them stories. She told stories about Helma and Ivra, the Wind Creatures, the Snow Witches and many more. The children listened eagerly, clapping their hands now and then, and at the end of every story asking for more. But Eric was lost in wonder. The children thought the stories were not true,--just fairy stories told them by a grandmother. And Nora had evidently long ago given up expecting them to believe. Her black eyes twinkled knowingly when they met Eric's puzzled ones. And all the time Eric had only to turn his head to see Ivra walking out there around in the field, looking at the farm house, waiting for him. But gradually, as the stories went on the little figure out there grew more and more to look like just a blue shadow on the snow, paler and paler. Finally he had to strain his eyes to see it at all.