"Part of the time," Peter answered, "but I dare say we was both asleep other times."
"Was Ellen careful about her prayers last night, and were you so, too?"
"I can't say about that," Peter said. "We might be letting some of them go, such a time as that, you know, and make it up after."
"Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, "make it up after by losing your child! Was there any iron anywhere about him?"
"I don't know that there was."
"And did you make a circle of fire about the place where he was lying?"
"I did not."
"The child's not been struck," said Mrs. O'Brien; "not the way you mean. It's not your child at all, but one of the Good People themselves, that's in it. They've stolen your child and left a changeling in the place of it."
"It's the same way you always talked, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I don't believe them things."
They had come to Peter's door by this time. They found Ellen lying in bed, looking frightened half to death, and beside her was the baby, or the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not crying loudly now, but it was keeping up a little whining and whimpering noise that was quite as unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry. Its face looked thin and pinched and old; it had a little thin, wispy hair on its head where no baby of the age that this one was supposed to be has a right to have any. Its arms and hands were thin and bony. It looked weak and sick, but it was rolling and wriggling about in the liveliest way. It would give a spring as if it were going straight off the bed upon the floor, and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it would roll back toward her, stop its crying for a second, and seem to be laughing at her, and then it would do the same thing again.