he heather, and then,
when the mountain top is gleaming like a golden spear, look at the line
where the shadow on the heather meets the sunshine, and you shall see
what you shall see."

And having said this, the thrush sang another song sweeter than the
first, and then saying "good-by," he flew away into the woods.

The children went home, and all night long they were dreaming of the
thrush and the nine little pipers; and when the birds sang in the
morning, they got up and went out into the meadow to watch the mountain.

The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, and no shadows lay on the
mountain, and all day long they watched and waited, and at last, when
the birds were singing their farewell song to the evening star, the
children saw the shadows marching from the glen, trooping up the
mountain side and dimming the purple of the heather.

And when the mountain top gleamed like a golden spear, they fixed their
eyes on the line between the shadow and the sunshine.

"Now," said Connla, "the time has come."

"Oh, look! look!" said Nora, and as she spoke, just above the line of
shadow a door opened out, and through its portals came a little piper
dressed in green and gold. He stepped down, followed by another and
another, until they were nine in all, and then the door slung back
again. Down through the heather marched the pipers in single file, and
all the time they played a music so sweet that the birds, who had gone
to sleep in their nests, came out upon the branches to listen to them,
and then they crossed the meadow, and they went on and on until they
disappeared in the leafy woods.

While they were passing the children were spellbound, and couldn't
speak, but when the music had died away in the woods, they said:

"The thrush is right, that is the sweetest music that was ever heard
in all the world."

And when the children went to bed that night the fairy music came to
them in their dreams. But when the morning broke, and they looked out
upon their mountain and could see no trace of the door above the
heather, they asked each other whether they had really seen the little
pipers, or only dreamt of them.

That day they went out into the woods, and they sat beside a stream that
pattered along beneath the trees, and through the leaves tossing in the
breeze the sun flashed down upon the streamlet, and shadow and sunshine
danced upon it. As the children watched the water sparkling where the
sunlight fell, Nora said: