Presently a long vertical slit appeared in the side of the tree and grew gradually wider and wider. A door was opening in the trunk! Karl stood gazing spell-bound at this amazing sight, when out from the dark entrance stepped a figure most wonderful to see. It was a lovely maiden, dressed all in brown,--the color of the tree-bark. About her head was twined a wreath of green oak leaves and acorns, and in her hand she carried a wand, made from a branch of the tree. She was a Dryad, the spirit whose home was the old oak tree; but Karl was too simple to know that. He merely stood staring at the beautiful stranger, too much surprised even to close his poor foolish mouth, which hung wide open. The Dryad smiled sweetly at the lad and said, “Thanks, kind friend, for saving my tree. I heard your wise words to the cruel Farmer, and brave you were to speak them. Now what can I do to make you happy, as we Dryads love to make happy him who does kindness to our sheltering trees?” Poor Karl did not understand how he had saved the tree. He only knew that for some reason the cruel Farmer had changed his mind. As little did he understand why the Dryad thanked him. But he heard the kindness of her voice, and knew she offered aid. “Oh, can you help me, beautiful Stranger?” he cried, clasping his hands eagerly and looking at her with tears in his eyes. “Indeed, I will help you all I can, kind lad,” said the Dryad, waving her wand and taking a step towards him. “Tell me about your trouble.” Then Karl told the Dryad all the sorrow of his life,--how he was foolish and of no use, a burden to his parents and a disgrace to the town; how all the village, even the little children and the cur-dogs, hated and despised him; how unhappy and lonesome he was. “O fair Stranger,” said Karl as he finished the sad little tale, “I am only a poor simpleton, and I can never do anything good or great. But if you could only teach me how to do some little thing that will be of use to the world, so that I shall not always be hated and despised even by the little children and dogs of the village, I should be so very happy! Will you do this, dear Tree-Maiden?” The Dryad looked at him pityingly, and the tears stood in her own brown eyes when she heard his wish. “Poor boy,” she said, and her voice was very sweet, “you ask nothing for yourself, neither riches nor happiness nor even wisdom. You ask only to be taught how your simplicity may be of some use to the world which has treated you so unkindly. Some would call it a foolish wish. But I say, O Karl, that it is not foolishness. Twice to-day you have spoken wisely, lad.” The Dryad looked up into the tree under which they stood; she looked down upon the ground; then she glanced around and about, thinking hard for Karl’s sake. And at last she spoke again.