ething
which she gave to Kathleen. It was a little crucifix, made of iron.
"It was this," she said, "that I touched you with to bring you out of
the circle when you were dancing with the Good People. Hang it around
your neck, and if Terence troubles you, hold it up before you and
before him. I have always said that Terence was one of the Good
People, and I never believed it more than this minute. If he is one of
them, he cannot come near the cross, and the iron will be a terror to
him too. If he tries to come too near to you, touch him with it, and
then we'll see."

"Why can he not come near the cross?" Kathleen asked.

"Because," Mrs. O'Brien said, "the Good People are a kind of spirits,
and no spirits can do you any harm if you hold the cross before you,
or if you make the sign of the cross. Did I never tell you what the
Good People were? They were angels and lived in Heaven once. When
Satan and his angels rebelled against God and were driven out of
Heaven, the angels that are the Good People were driven out too. They
were not good enough to stay in Heaven, and they were not bad enough
to fall as Satan and his angels fell, so some of them stayed on the
land and some of them stayed in the sea. And so they will live till
the Day of Judgment, and then, some say, they will vanish like dew
when it dries away; and some say that they will be saved like the
souls of Christians. But we do not know."

"You do not know," Kathleen repeated, "if the Good People will be
saved or not? They were very good to me, though they kept me away from
home so long, and I should like to believe--"

"I have read of one of them," Mrs. O'Brien went on, "who looked in at
the gate of Heaven, and an angel told him that he could come in, if
he could bring with him the thing which was counted in Heaven the most
precious in all the world. And he found it and brought it and went
into Heaven. But for the most of them--the Good People themselves do
not know whether they are to be saved, and we common people do not
know, but they say that priests know. And sometimes the Good People
themselves have tried to find out from them.

"There was a troupe of fairies dancing one night on a green near a
river, and they were all having the merry kind of time that you know
better than I do, Kathleen. But they stopped all at once and ran to
hide themselves among the grass and behind leaves and weeds. For they
knew, in the way that they have of knowing, that a pries