“The little ghost will now appear among you and relate some live stories from ghostland,” announced Crazy Jane.

A slender white figure stepped from behind a tree so quickly as to bring little screams of alarm from several girls.  The figure was dressed in white with a white mask covering her face.  Some of the girls recognized Harriet Burrell, but the majority did not.  They did, however, shout with laughter when a second ghost, the assistant to the first tripped out from behind another tree with a little chirp that was distinctly unghostly.

“Hello, girlth,” she piped.

The second ghost’s usefulness was thereupon ended for the evening.  The girls grabbed and unmasked her.  Harriet raised a wand, in this case a burning fagot.

“Maidens fair,” she began in a deep impressive voice.  “Do you know what a banshee is?”

“I know,” cried Hazel.  “A banshee is a ghost, that the peasants in Ireland believe in.  It stands outside their windows at night and wails dismally.  Its appearance is supposed to foretell the death of a member of the family.”

“Quite right,” replied Harriet.  “Now listen to my story.  Once upon a time there lived a family of poor people in County Mooreland in Ireland.  With them lived their beautiful child Muriel.  Now the fairies and the banshees, the wood nymphs and the sprites coveted this beautiful child Muriel because they knew she would make a good fairy.  But they dared not approach the hut where Muriel made her home, in the daytime.  At night little Muriel was sound asleep behind closed doors.  There was no way for the banshees and the wood nymphs and the sprites to get into the house and take her while she slept, for there always was a fire in the fireplace.  As everybody knows a fairy cannot pass through flames without singeing her wings——­”

“Why didn’t thhe wear water wingth?” piped Tommy Thompson.

“Every night the fairies used to perch in the flowers and under the shamrock that grew in Muriel’s door yard, waiting and hoping to catch the little one and kidnap her.”

“Some one should have called the police,” ventured Margery.

“If the sprites could reach Muriel,” went on Harriet, ignoring Margery’s flippant remark, “they could quickly transform her into something else and in that manner get her away.  You see these were bad fairies and gnomes and sprites and things.”

“Yeth,” agreed Tommy.  “I thee.”

“Well, one night a very powerful banshee came along and asked them what they were doing there.  They told it they were waiting for the beautiful child Muriel that they might bear her away, but that they could not get to her.

“‘Oho, aha!’ cried the banshee.  ’I have a plan.  I will call upon the friend of my people, the west wind, to blow hard.  Stand close and when the door of the cottage blows open see that you enter by one door but do not go out by the other.  The west wind will blow thrice, then will die away.  It is for you to gather the child then.  I can summon the wind but once.’”