ingers to
sing her songs. And here they will be telling of those days, and
singing those songs. Come and listen. 'Tis a Feis [pronounced _faysh_]
they're having, and prizes given for the best tale told, or the best
song sung."

The old woman and the Twins made their way to the platform and sat down
on a bench near the edge of it. Many other people were sitting or
standing about. An old man stood up on the platform. He told the story
of Cuchulain [pronounced _Koohoolin_]--the "Hound of Culain"--and how he
fought all the greatest warriors of the world on the day he first took
arms.

When he had finished, another man took his place and told the story of
Deirdre and Naisi, and another told the fate of the four children of Lir
that were turned into four beautiful swans by their cruel stepmother.

And when the stories were finished a prize was given for the best one,
and the Twins were glad that it was for the story of Deirdre, for that
tale was like an old friend to them.

After that there was music, and the dances of old Ireland--the reel and
the lilt. And when last of all came the Irish jig, the old woman put
her basket down on the ground.

"Sure, the music is like the springtime in my bones," she said to the
Twins. "Be-dad, I'd the foot of the world on me when I was a girl and I
can still shake one with the best of them, if I do say it myself."

She put her hands on her hips and began to dance! The music got into
everybody else's bones, too, and soon everybody around the platform, and
on it, too,--old and young, large and small,--was dancing gayly to the
sound of it.

The Twins danced with the rest, and they were having such a good time
that they might have forgotten to go home at all if all of a sudden,
Larry hadn't shaken Eileen's arm and said, "Look there!"

"Where?" Eileen said. "There!" said Larry. "The rough man with the
brown horse."

The moment Eileen saw the man with the brown horse she took Larry's hand
and they both ran as fast as they could back to their Father.

"We saw the Tinker!" they cried the moment they saw Mr McQueen.

"Then we'd as well be starting home," said Mr McQueen. "I'd rather not
be meeting the gentleman on the road after dark." He got Colleen and
put her into the cart once more. Then he and the Twins had something to
eat. They bought a ginger cake shaped like a rabbit, and another like a
man from one of the hawkers, and they bought some sugar-sticks, too, and
the