a year elder, and his brother Con, a little
more than a year elder than she, made up
the little group.

Under the great old ash-trees, whose
last leaves were falling at their feet, in the
light of an October sunset, they were playing
with the hilarity and eagerness of
rustic children, clamouring together, and
their faces were turned toward the west
and the storied hill of Lisnavoura.

Suddenly a startling voice with a screech
called to them from behind, ordering them
to get out of the way, and turning, they
saw a sight, such as they never beheld
before. It was a carriage drawn by four
horses that were pawing and snorting, in
impatience, as if just pulled up. The
children were almost under their feet, and
scrambled to the side of the road next their
own door.

This carriage and all its appointments
were old-fashioned and gorgeous, and
presented to the children, who had never seen
anything finer than a turf-car, and once, an
old chaise that passed that way from
Killaloe, a spectacle perfectly dazzling.

Here was antique splendour. The
harness and trappings were scarlet, and blazing
with gold. The horses were huge, and
snow white, with great manes, that as
they tossed and shook them in the air,
seemed to stream and float sometimes
longer and sometimes shorter, like so much
smoke—their tails were long, and tied up
in bows of broad scarlet and gold ribbon.
The coach itself was glowing with colours,
gilded and emblazoned. There were footmen
behind in gay liveries, and three-
cocked hats, like the coachman's; but he
had a great wig, like a judge's, and their
hair was frizzed out and powdered, and a
long thick "pigtail," with a bow to it,
hung down the back of each.

All these servants were diminutive, and
ludicrously out of proportion with the
enormous horses of the equipage, and had
sharp, sallow features, and small, restless,
fiery eyes, and faces of cunning and
malice that chilled the children. The little
coachman was scowling and showing his
white fangs under his cocked-hat, and his
little blazing beads of eyes were quivering
with fury in their sockets as he whirled his
whip round and round over their heads,
till the lash of it looked like a streak of
fire in the evening sun, and sounded like
the cry of a legion of "fillaponeeks" in
the air.

"Stop the princess on the highway!"
cried the coachman, in a piercing treble.

"Stop the princess on the highway!"
piped each footman in turn, scowling over
his shoulder down on the children, and
grinding his keen teeth.

The children were so frightened they
could only gape and turn white in their
panic. But a very sweet voice from the
open window of the carriage reassured
them, and arrested the attack of the lackeys.
A beautiful and "very grand-looking" lady
was smiling from it on them, and they all
felt pleased in the strange light of that
smile.

"The boy with the golden hair, I think,"
said the lady, bending her large and
wonderfully clear eyes on little Leum.

The upper sides of the carriage were
chiefly of glass, so that the children could
see another woman inside, whom they did
not like so well.

This was a black woman, with a
wonderfully long neck, hung round with many
strings of large variously-coloured beads,
and on her head was a sort of turban of
silk, striped with all the colours of the
rainbow, and fixed in it was a golden star.

This black woman had a face as thin
almost as a death's-head, with high cheek-
bones, and great goggle eyes, the whites
of which, as well as her wide range of
teeth, showed in brilliant contrast with
her skin, as she looked over the beautiful
lady's shoulder, and whispered something
in her ear.

"Yes; the boy with the golden hair, I
think," repeated the lady.

And her voice sounded sweet as a silver
bell in the children's ears, and her smile
beguiled them like the light of an
enchanted lamp, as she leaned from the
window, with a look of ineffable fondness
on the golden-haired boy, with the large
blue eyes; insomuch that little Billy, looking up,
smiled in return with a wondering
fondness, and when she stooped down, and
stretched her jewelled arms towards him,
he stretched his little hands up, and how
they touched the other children did not
know; but, saying,  "Come and give me a
kiss, my darling," she raised him, and he
seemed to ascend in her small fingers as
lightly as a feather, and she held him in
her lap and covered him with kisses.

Nothing daunted, the other children
would have been only too happy to change
places with their favoured little brother.
There was only one thing that was unpleasant,
and a little frightened them, and that
was the black woman, who stood and
stretched forward, in the carriage as before.