aid the King, "you'll go to
the Sullivans and stay in the place of the child that we're to carry
off. It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any fiddle about
for you to play on, and you can stay there quite comfortable.

"Off with him now!" the King cried to a dozen of his men, "and mind
you don't come back without the child. And the same to you," he said
again to others of his men; "take the woman and leave her in the place
of the child at the O'Briens'."

The two parties were off, like two little swarms of bees, the one with
Naggeneen and the other with the woman. The rest of the fairies
waited. The Queen sat on her throne, with her face turned away from
the rest and hidden in her hands. The King, with a troubled face, sat
looking straight before him, not moving an eye or a hand. The others
stood as far off as they could go. Nobody played; nobody danced;
nobody laughed or whispered. They waited and watched and listened.
Then there was a little murmur and buzz of one of the parties coming
back. It was the one that had been to the Sullivans.

The King looked up and seemed to look through the fairies without
seeing them. "Have you the child with you?" he asked.

"We have," said the leader.

"And where's Naggeneen?" the King asked.

"Lying in the bed beside Mrs. Sullivan," the leader answered, "and
squealing like a pig under a gate."

"Give the child something to eat and make him comfortable," said the
King.

The Queen turned suddenly around. "Don't give him anything to eat
yet," she said. "We've nothing here but our own food. You couldn't
give him that. What did you bring him here for? Was it not so that you
could send him out again, as he grows up, to learn to do the things
that men do? And if he touched a bit of our food or our drink, you
know he could never leave us."

"That's the true word," said the King. "Here! Some of you go to the
O'Briens' and see is there any milk left out of the window. And bring
back enough so there'll be some for the other child, when we get her."

As the fairies set off on this errand there came a sound like the
whistling of the wind through the door, and those who had gone to
bring the O'Briens' child were back. They were back in a whirl and a
rush and a scramble and a rout. They were all screaming and crying and
whimpering and gabbling and gibbering together, and they all fell and
sprawled together in a heap before the King. In the midst of them was
the woman who had