from us, anyway?'

"And he just found breath enough to say: 'I want the same that Lusmore
had,' meaning by that he wanted them to reward him the same way they
did Lusmore.

"But one of the Good People shouted: 'You'll get what Lusmore had,
then; it was a hump on the back that Lusmore had, and we took it off
him, but we don't want it and it's easy to give it to you. Be lively
there now, some of you, and hand that hump down here.'

"And then some of the Good People got Lusmore's hump, that was hanging
up under the roof, and they clapped it on his back, on the top of his
own, and then they threw him out of the rath. And there his mother
found him in the morning, more dead than alive and with a hump twice
as big as before."

"A fine story that is, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence said, when the old woman
had finished. "And why didn't the one of them get the same reward as
the other? Sure he did the same as the other in lengthening the song
for the fairies, didn't he?"

"He did the same in a way," Mrs. O'Brien answered, "but not for the
same reason. Lusmore helped them with the song because he thought they
might be the better for his help, and that was all the reason. And he
did it in a way that wouldn't disturb them. But the other did it only
to help himself, because he thought that he'ld get a great reward for
it, and he had no real wish to do them any kindness. Don't you see the
difference between the two of them?"

"Stuff!" said Terence.

[Illustration: ]

VIII

THE STARS IN THE WATER

This is to be another sort of chapter altogether. I am going to tell
you now what happened. The eighteen years are gone now and we have
come to the time when there is something to tell.

When those eighteen years began, you know, Kathleen and Terence were
not much more than born. So, if you have got as far as addition and
can add eighteen to nothing and find that it makes eighteen, you will
see that by this time they were about eighteen years old. John O'Brien
and his mother and Kathleen did not live on the east side of Central
Park any more. John had got on better and better with the work that he
was doing. After a while, instead of having to do work of common kinds
any more, he had been put in charge of other men who were doing it.
After another while he learned so much about the work and how it was
done and how it ought to be done, that he was made one of the partners
in the company that did it. So he got a good deal more