e chariot with their stepmother.

When they had driven a long way, Eva turned to her attendants: "Much
wealth have I," she said, "and all that I have shall be yours if you
will slay for me those four hateful things that have stolen from me
the love of my man."

The servants heard her in horror, and in horror and shame for her they
answered: "Fearful is the deed thou wouldst have us do; more fearful
still is it that thou shouldst have so wicked a thought. Evil will
surely come upon thee for having wished to take the lives of Lir's
innocent little children."

Angrily, then, she seized a sword and herself would fain have done
what her servants had scorned to do. But she lacked strength to carry
out her own evil wish, and so they journeyed onwards. They came to
Lake Darvra at last--now Lough Derravaragh, in West Meath--and there
they all alighted from the chariot, and the children, feeling as
though they had been made to play at an ugly game, but that now it was
over and all was safety and happiness again, were sent into the loch
to bathe. Joyously and with merry laughter the little boys splashed
into the clear water by the rushy shore, all three seeking to hold
the hands of their sister, whose little slim white body was whiter
than the water-lilies and her hair more golden than their hearts.

It was then that Eva struck them, as a snake strikes its prey. One
touch for each, with a magical wand of the Druids, then the low
chanting of an old old rune, and the beautiful children had vanished,
and where their tiny feet had pressed the sand and their yellow hair
had shown above the water like four daffodil heads that dance in the
wind, there floated four white swans. But although to Eva belonged the
power of bewitching their bodies, their hearts and souls and speech
still belonged to the children of Lir. And when Finola spoke, it was
not as a little timid child, but as a woman who could look with sad
eyes into the future and could there see the terrible punishment of a
shameful act.

"Very evil is the deed that thou hast done," she said. "We only gave
thee love, and we are very young, and all our days were happiness. By
cruelty and treachery thou hast brought our childhood to an end, yet
is our doom less piteous than thine. Woe, woe unto thee, O Eva, for a
fearful doom lies before thee!"

Then she asked--a child still, longing to know when the dreary days of
its banishment from other children should be over--"Tell us how