the more from the Good People."

John and his mother left Mrs. Mulvey with little Kathleen and went
with Peter. "And what's wrong with Ellen, then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.

"I dunno that there's so much wrong with herself, as you might say,"
Peter answered. "I think it's more than anything else that she's
worried about the child."

"And what's wrong with the child, then?"

"There's everything wrong with the child," said Peter. "It's not like the
same child at all. Last night he was as healthy a boy as you'ld wish to
see--quiet and peaceable and good-tempered and strong-looking, for his
age. And now this morning he's thin and sick-looking, and there's black
hair all over his arms, and his face is wrinkled, like he was a little
old man, and he does nothing but cry and scream till you can't bear it,
and twist and squirm till you can't hold him. It's like he was
fairy-struck, only I don't believe in them things at all."

"Did you watch him close last night?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.

"Part of the time," Peter answered, "but I dare say we was both asleep
other times."

"Was Ellen careful about her prayers last night, and were you so,
too?"

"I can't say about that," Peter said. "We might be letting some of
them go, such a time as that, you know, and make it up after."

"Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, "make it up after by losing your child! Was
there any iron anywhere about him?"

"I don't know that there was."

"And did you make a circle of fire about the place where he was
lying?"

"I did not."

"The child's not been struck," said Mrs. O'Brien; "not the way you
mean. It's not your child at all, but one of the Good People
themselves, that's in it. They've stolen your child and left a
changeling in the place of it."

"It's the same way you always talked, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I
don't believe them things."

They had come to Peter's door by this time. They found Ellen lying in
bed, looking frightened half to death, and beside her was the baby, or
the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not crying loudly now, but it
was keeping up a little whining and whimpering noise that was quite as
unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry. Its face looked thin
and pinched and old; it had a little thin, wispy hair on its head
where no baby of the age that this one was supposed to be has a right
to have any. Its arms and hands were thin and bony. It looked weak and
sick, but it was rolling and wriggling about in the liveliest w