"He led the man up the stairs and knocked at a door. A beautiful woman opened it. She was dressed in a gown of silk, and it was all trimmed with gold and jewels. He asked her if she could give him and the stranger a dinner. Then she placed before them the finest dinner that was ever seen. And when they had eaten and drunk as much as they liked, the gentleman said: 'Do you know why this woman was able to give us such a dinner?'
"'I do not know,' said the man, 'but I should like to know, if you care to tell me.'
"'When I was alive,' said the gentleman, 'I had three wives. And the first wife I had would never give anything to any poor man but little potatoes. And now she has nothing but little potatoes herself, and she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. And my second wife would never give anything to the poor but meal and husks, and now she has nothing but meal and husks herself, and she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. But my third wife always gave to the poor the best that she had, and so she will always have the best that there is in the world, and she can always give the best in the world to anyone, till the Day of Judgment.'
"Then the gentleman took the man about and showed him his house, and it was a palace, more beautiful than anything that he had ever seen. And while he was walking about it he heard music. And he thought that he had never heard music so beautiful. And while he was listening to the music he felt like sleeping, so he lay down and slept. And when he woke he was in his own home. He never saw the gentleman again and he could never find the place where he had been."
"It's all the time fairies and ghosts with you, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence said. "Who cares what they do? It's what men do that counts. I'll tell you a story now."
So Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen listened to Terence's story.
"There was three men," Terence began, "that lived near together, and their names was Hudden and Dudden and Donald. Each one of them had an ox that he'ld be ploughing with. Donald was a cleverer man than the others and he got on better. So the other two put their heads together to think what would they do to hurt Donald and to ruin him entirely, so that he'ld have to give up his farm and they could get it cheap. Well, after a while they thought that if they could kill his ox he couldn't plough his land, and then he'ld lose the use of it and he'ld have to give it up. So one night they went and killed Donald's ox.
"And to be sure, when Donald found his ox killed, he thought it was all over with him. But he wasn't the man to be thinking that way long. So he thought he'd better make the best he could of it, and he took the skin off the ox and started with it to the town to sell it. And as he was going along a magpie perched on the skin and began pecking at it, and all the time chattering, for it had been taught to talk. With that Donald put round his hand and caught the magpie and held it under his coat.
"He went on to the town and sold the skin, and then he went to an inn for a drink. He followed the landlady down into the cellar, and while she was drawing the liquor he pinched the magpie and it began chattering again. 'By the powers,' says the landlady, 'who's that talking and what's he saying at all?'
"'It's a bird,' says Donald, 'that I carry around with me, and it knows a great deal and tells me many a thing that it's good for me to know. And it's after telling me just now that the liquor you're giving me is not the best you have.'