nd these (glancing at the old man and
woman), are some of my courtiers; and I'm considering now what I shall
do with _you_, whether I shall send you to-night to Lough Guir, riding
on a rush, to make my compliments to the Earl of Desmond in his
enchanted castle; or, straight to your bed, two thousand miles under
ground, among the gnomes; or to prison in that little corner of the moon
you see through the window--with the man-in-the-moon for your gaoler,
for thrice three hundred years and a day! There, don't cry. You only see
how serious a thing it is for you, little boys, to come so near my
castle. Now, for this once, I'll let you go. But, henceforward, any boys
I, or my people, may find within half a mile round my castle, shall
belong to me for life, and never behold their home or their people
more."

And she sang a little air and chased mystically half a dozen steps
before him, holding out her cloak with her pretty fingers, and
courtesying very low, to his indescribable alarm.

Then, with a little laugh, she said----

"My little man, we must mend your head."

And so they washed his scratch, and the elder one applied a plaister to
it. And she of the great blue eyes took out of her pocket a little
French box of bon-bons and emptied it into his hand, and she said----

"You need not be afraid to eat these--they are very good--and I'll send
my fairy, Blanc-et-bleu, to set you free. Take him (she addressed
Larry), and let him go, with a solemn charge."

The elder, with a grave and affectionate smile, said, looking on the
fairy----

"Brave, dear, wild Una! nothing can ever quell your gaiety of heart."

And Una kissed her merrily on the cheek.

So the oak door of the room again opened, and Shaeen, with his
conductor, descended the stair. He walked with the scared boy in grim
silence near half way down the wild hill-side toward Murroa, and then he
stopped, and said in Irish----

"You never saw the fairies before, my fine fellow, and 'tisn't often
those who once set eyes on us return to tell it. Whoever comes nearer,
night or day, than this stone," and he tapped it with the end of his
cane, "will never see his home again, for we'll keep him till the day of
judgment; goodnight, little gossoon--and away with you."

So these young ladies, Alice and Una, with two old servants, by their
father's direction, had taken up their abode in a portion of that side
of the old castle which overhung the glen; and with the furniture