A white table-cloth was hastily thrown over the hampers, and the followers were told to wash their feet and hurry on their clean pinafores, which latter had been wisely put on one side in the early part of the day. Ellie was to be the messenger who was to summon Nessa, and her shabby green frock was far from suitable to such an occasion. Rosie looked at her in despair for a moment.
"Quick, quick, Winnie, the needles and thread," she said; and then she and Winnie tacked a garland of white heather round the hem of the frock, looped it up over the short, scarlet linsey petticoat, and placed bunches of white heather on the breast and shoulders with such effect that when Murtagh crowned the child's golden head with a wreath of the same white flowers, Winnie cried in delight, "Oh, Ellie, you do look like a little fairy, so you do."
"All but the boots and stockings," returned Murtagh.
"Tate 'em off," said Ellie, eagerly holding up one foot. "Ellie want to be a fairy."
"The grass'll prick," said Winnie. But Ellie replied: "Me don't mind. Ellie be a fairy then, and look so pretty."
So they pulled off the clumsy boots, and she danced gleefully over the grass, her golden curls falling over her dimpled shoulders, her little white feet and legs twinkling in the sunlight.
"'Deed it's like an angel right down from heaven she is!" exclaimed more than one of the followers, while Rose, with anxiety said: "Take care, Ellie; don't shake off your wreath. Now you're to come with us where Nessa is behind the rock, and you're to tell her—What shall we say, Murtagh?"
"Tell her to come and be one of us," replied Murtagh, grandiloquently. "You lead Ellie down, Rosie. All you followers follow, and as soon as Miss Nessa comes round the rock, form into two lines for her to pass through, and scatter your flowers. Now begin to sing."
He touched his violin. Winnie's clear voice rose first, then all the others joined in, and the music swelled in harmony as the little procession moved down the slope.
Notwithstanding the sunlight, the flowers, and the gay dresses of the children, there was a something almost solemn in their voices.