"To lie upon a rath!" groaned Moira. "It's bewitched you'll be and turnin' into somethin' before our eyes."
"Or spirited away underground!" added Barney; "or laid under a spell that you'd ever and always be a child."
"I'd like that," remarked Winifred, settling herself more comfortably upon the mound. "I don't want to grow up or be old ever."
She gazed up at the moon, seeming to see in its far-shining kingdom some country of perpetual youth.
"She'd like it! The Lord save us!" cried Barney. "It's wishin' for a fairy spell she is. Come away, Miss Winifred dear,—come away, if you're a Christian at all, and not a fairy as some says."
Moira uttered an exclamation, and, darting over to Barney, dealt him a sounding slap on the ear.
"How dare you talk that way to Miss Winifred!" she cried.
"And how dare you slap Barney for repeating what foolish people say!" broke in Winifred. "I'm ashamed of you, Moira!"
She stood up as she spoke, confronting both the culprits. Barney's face was still red from the slap, as well as from a sense of the enormity he had committed in repeating to Miss Winifred what he supposed had been kept carefully from her. Moira's lip quivered at her young mistress's reproof, and she seemed on the point of crying; but Winifred spoke with exceeding gentleness.