heard her now it would be for a sign that their mother must
die too.

Lull would do her best to comfort them. "Banshee daren't set fut in
the garden, or raise wan skirl of a cry, after all the prayers yez have
been sayin'," she would tell them. But when she left them it was only
to go to the kitchen fire and pray against the same fear herself. But,
apart from this shadow, that often lifted for weeks at a time, their
life was very happy. Mick, the eldest, was twelve years old, and
Honeybird was five; the others, Jane, Fly, and Patsy, came between.
The two eldest, Mick and Jane, led the others, though Fly and Patsy
criticised their leaders' opinions when they saw fit; Honeybird was
content to blindly obey. After one of their good days they would go to
bed in the big nursery, sure that no children in the world were so
content. When there was no frightening wind in the trees they could
hear through the open window the sea across the fields. "It's a quare,
good world," Jane would mutter sleepily; and Fly would reply: "The
sea's the nicest ould thing in it; you'd think it was hooshin' us to
sleep"; and then Patsy's voice would come from the dressing-room:
"Mebby it's bringin' our ship in to us."

CHAPTER III

JANE'S CONVERSION

On Sunday morning the children went to church by themselves. They
would rather have gone to Mass with Lull in the Convent Chapel, but
Lull said they were Protestants. Everybody else was a Roman
Catholic--Uncle Niel, Aunt Mary, Andy Graham, even ould Davy, though he
never went to Mass.

None of the children liked going to church; they went to please Lull.
The service was long and dull, and though each one of them had a
private plan to while away the time they found it very tedious.

Jane was the luckiest, for under the carpet in the corner where she
sat--Jane and Mick sat in the front pew--there was a fresh crop of
fungi every Sunday; all prayer-time she was occupied in scraping it off
with a pin. Honeybird came next; she had collected all the spare
hassocks into the second pew, and played house under the seat. So long
as they made no noise they felt they were behaving well, for old Mr
Rannigan, the rector, was nearly blind, and could not see what they
were doing. Sometimes Mick followed the service in the big
prayer-book, just for the fun of hearing Mr Rannigan making mistakes
when he lost his place or fell asleep, as he did one Sunday in the
middle of a prayer, and woke up wi