with gold and jewels. He asked her if she could give him and the
stranger a dinner. Then she placed before them the finest dinner that
was ever seen. And when they had eaten and drunk as much as they
liked, the gentleman said: 'Do you know why this woman was able to
give us such a dinner?'

"'I do not know,' said the man, 'but I should like to know, if you
care to tell me.'

"'When I was alive,' said the gentleman, 'I had three wives. And the
first wife I had would never give anything to any poor man but little
potatoes. And now she has nothing but little potatoes herself, and
she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. And my
second wife would never give anything to the poor but meal and husks,
and now she has nothing but meal and husks herself, and she can give
nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. But my third wife
always gave to the poor the best that she had, and so she will always
have the best that there is in the world, and she can always give the
best in the world to anyone, till the Day of Judgment.'

"Then the gentleman took the man about and showed him his house, and
it was a palace, more beautiful than anything that he had ever seen.
And while he was walking about it he heard music. And he thought that
he had never heard music so beautiful. And while he was listening to
the music he felt like sleeping, so he lay down and slept. And when he
woke he was in his own home. He never saw the gentleman again and he
could never find the place where he had been."

"It's all the time fairies and ghosts with you, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence
said. "Who cares what they do? It's what men do that counts. I'll tell
you a story now."

So Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen listened to Terence's story.

"There was three men," Terence began, "that lived near together, and
their names was Hudden and Dudden and Donald. Each one of them had an
ox that he'ld be ploughing with. Donald was a cleverer man than the
others and he got on better. So the other two put their heads together
to think what would they do to hurt Donald and to ruin him entirely,
so that he'ld have to give up his farm and they could get it cheap.
Well, after a while they thought that if they could kill his ox he
couldn't plough his land, and then he'ld lose the use of it and he'ld
have to give it up. So one night they went and killed Donald's ox.

"And to be sure, when Donald found his ox killed, he thought it was
all over with him. But