sweet and pale,
And she rode an all-cream pony with an Arab head and tail.

"Says she to him, 'Young gentleman, to you I'd be beholden
If you'd ride along to Fairyland this night beside o' me;
There's a fox that eats our chickens--them that lays the eggs that's golden--
And our little fairy mouse-dogs, ah, 'tis small account they'll be,
Sure it wants an advertising pack to gobble such as he!'

"So gran'dad says, 'Your servant, Miss,' and got his hounds together,
And the mountain-side flew open and they rode into the hill;
'Your country's one to cross,' says he, and rights a stirrup-leather,
And he found in half-a-jiffey, and he finished with a kill;
And the little fairy lady, she was with 'em with a will.

"Then 'O,' says she, 'young man,' says she, ''tis lonesome here in Faerie,
So won't you stay and hunt with us and never more to roam,
And take a bride'--she looks at him--'whose youth can never vary,
With hair as black as midnight and a breast as white as foam?'
And 'Thank you, Miss,' says gran'dad, 'but I've got a wife at home!'

"Then, 'O, young man,' says she, 'young man, then you shall take a bounty,
A bounty of my magic that may grant you wishes three;
Come make yourself the grandest man from out o' Galway County
To Dublin's famous city all of my good gramarye?'
And, 'Thank you, Miss,' says gran'dad, 'but such ain't no use to me.'

"But he said, since she was pressing of her fairy spells and forces,
He'd take the threefold bounty, lest a gift he'd seem to scorn:
He'd ask, beyond all other men, the tricks o' hounds and horses,
And a voice to charm a woodland of a soft December morn,
And sons to follow after him, all to the business born.

"And--but here we are at home, Sir. Yes, the old man was a terror
For his fairies and his nonsense, yet the story's someways right;
He'd the trick o' hounds and horses to a marvel--and no error;
And to hear him draw a woodland was a pride and a delight;
And--_was it luck entirely, Sir, I killed my fox to-night?_"

* * * * *

THE LITTLE WONDER.

The crowd had gone, the lights had been extinguished, and the doors
of the music-hall were shut. The Little Wonder was tired after the
performance; his attempt to do the double somersault had strained him,
and his failure had brought a whipping. Although the outhouse in which
he was to lie was cold an