"My dear boy—Michael!" she cried. "What extravagance is this? And you said it would be just a simple meal—'pot-luck' you called it, if I remember right?"
"And pot-luck it is," he replied, laughing. "There's no reason that I know of why pot-luck shouldn't be good fare, as I hope you will find our dinner to be."
There is no need to tell you how the feast was enjoyed. To begin with, it was flavoured not only with the "best sauce" of the old proverb—hunger—but also with the excellent additions of friendliness and gratitude and goodwill, and besides these even, there was a mysterious feeling of graciousness and prettiness over it all, which I am inclined to think must have been wafted with the viands from fairyland itself.
Never had the children had such a treat, and being modest and unselfish and far from greedy they enjoyed it all the more, nor was there any necessity for their grandmother to warn them not to eat too much.
Every one had enough—indeed Hodge's appetite seemed equal to that of two ordinary people—but yet when all had replied, "No thank you, nothing more," to Michael's hospitable offers, the dishes looked by no means empty, and though he made the children carry off a couple of oranges each, for a little Sunday treat at home, the pile of fruit scarcely appeared to have been touched. The thought did cross Michael's head that he wished he could keep the remains of the feast in his larder. But "No," he decided, "it would be greedy and might displease the fairies."
So when the dame and her grandchildren, with many and many expressions of gratitude, took their leave—though, by the bye, I must not forget to tell you that what brought the poor things' pleasure to the highest height was Michael's telling them that he would expect them at the same hour and in the same way the following Sunday, "and every Sunday, so long as my pot-luck continues to suit you," he added—well then, as soon as the three had left he re-entered the cottage with his cousins and carefully closing the door, rang the fairy bell for the invisible attendants to remove the table.
It disappeared as it had come, obediently to his summons. Then Hodge and Giles turned to him.
"The luck's with you, Mike, no doubt about it," they said, but without any ill-will, it must be allowed.
"Let's count it as belonging to us all," said hospitable Michael. "It shall be a fixed rule that you two dine with me every Sunday, same as to-day. And as long as the good people favour us as they've done this time, the least we can do is to let those who are less well off than we, share in our prosperity. I've a feeling that it's what old Uncle Peter would wish."
"That's why you mean to have the dame and her boy and girl every Sunday?" said Hodge. "Well, for my part I wouldn't take upon me to object. They're nice-mannered children, and the dame's an old friend. And there was enough and to spare."