nger."

"It is well," replied Finola, shaking down the mantle of her ebon locks,
and setting the golden combs more firmly in them; "only, if I perish,
I prithee let there be no cairns or Ogams. Let me fall, as a beauty
should, face upward; and if it be but a swoon, and the invader be a
handsome prince, see that he wakens me in his own good way."

"To arms, then!" cried Pearla, and, taking up their spears and shields,
the Fair Strangers dashed blindly in the direction whence the berries
fell.

"To arms indeed, but to yours or ours?" called two voices from the heart
of the labyrinth; and there, in an instant, the two brave champions,
Finola and Pearla, found the Fairy Tree hanging thick with scarlet
berries, and under its branches, fit fruit indeed to raise the spirits
or bring eternal youth, were, in the language of the Dedannans, Loskenn
of the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory,--known to the Children of
Corr the Swift-Footed as Ronald Macdonald and Himself!

And the hours ran on; and Sheela the Scribe brewed and brewed and brewed
and brewed the tea at her table in the Peacock Walk, and the knights and
ladies quaffed it from the golden cups belonging to the Wise Woman of
Wales; but Finola the Festive and Pearla the Melodious lingered in the
labyrinth with Loskenn of the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory. And
they said to one another, "Surely, if it were so great a task to find
the heart of this maze, we should be mad to stir from the spot, lest we
lose it again."

And Pearla murmured, "That plan were wise indeed, save that the place
seemeth all too small for so many."

Then Finola drew herself up proudly, and replied, "It is no smaller for
one than for another; but come, Loskenn, let us see if haply we can lose
ourselves in some path of our own finding."

And this they did; and the content of them that departed was no greater
than the content of them that were left behind, and the sun hid himself
for very shame because the brightness of their joy was so much more
dazzling than the glory of his own face. And nothing more is told of
what befell them till they reached the threshold of the Old Hall; and it
was not the sun, but the moon, that shone upon their meeting with Sheela
the Scribe.

Chapter XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen.

'When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats li