layed. But there was no merriment
in it now. It was only the breath of sorrow and loss and
disappointment that breathed from the shivering strings. The fairies
did not dance; they only stood and listened, pale and still. In a few
moments the King gave the sign for Naggeneen to stop, and in a minute
more the lights were out and the whole palace was as quiet as the
hill, before any palace was there.

[Illustration: ]

V

THE TIME FOR NAGGENEEN'S PLAN

Little happened that needs to be told in the next few months, either
to the fairies or to the human people. John O'Brien and Peter Sullivan
were not long in finding work to do, and they were paid for it, and
the two families got on better than they had in Ireland. The O'Briens
got on better than the Sullivans. John was a better workman than
Peter. Peter could do the work that was set before him in the way that
he was told. But John could do better than that. He could see for
himself how the work ought to be done, and he saw that if he did it
well he might get better work to do. In Ireland, work as he would, he
could no more than live, and so he had come to care little what he did
or how he did it. But it was different here. The men who employed him
saw that he was not a common workman, and soon they gave him better
than the common work and more than the common pay.

But Peter was a common workman. Then, too, John's mother knew how to
care for the house better than Ellen did, and because of that, too,
the O'Briens did better. Every day, just as she used to do in Ireland,
Mrs. O'Brien left something to eat and drink outside the house for the
Good People. She said that she did not know whether there were any
Good People here, but if there were they must be well treated. And
when she found that what she left for them was taken, she said that
she knew that there were Good People here. Of course she did not know
that they were the same ones who had lived near them in Ireland. She
put the milk and the water and the bread, or whatever she had for
them, on the fire-escape, at the back of the rooms where they lived.
And first she always laid down a little piece of carpet to put the
dishes on, so that the fairies could come and get the food without
touching the iron, for she knew that they could never do that. There
was only one thing that did not go well with the O'Briens. Kitty's
health did not come back to her, as they had hoped that it would. She
did not need to do a