“It thertainly had thome confidenthe in itthelf,” observed Grace Thompson, nodding her head.

“The fairies and the gnomes and the sprites and the banshees gathered about the door of the shack,” continued the first ghost, “Suddenly they heard a wild, weird wailing off on the moor.  The ghostly little conspirators trembled with fear, for these midnight wailings, these moaning winds across the moor boded no good for all of their kind.  It meant that the spirits of evil were abroad.

“Suddenly a mighty gale struck the little house, causing it to tremble from cellar to roof.  Then the front door burst open with a crash.  The west wind with an awful wail and roar rushed into the shack, carrying with it the fairies and the gnomes and the sprites and the banshees.  No sooner were they inside the cottage than the other door burst open and all the fairies and the gnomes and the sprites were hurled out and carried away on the great gale.  But one little banshee had found lodgment on a beam where it clung until the gale had passed.

“And what do you think it did?”

“Carried away the child?” suggested a voice.

“Did you ever hear of anything so perfectly ridiculous?” exclaimed Cora Kidder.

“I gueth it went to thleep and fell off into the fire,” suggested Tommy.

“No.  It waited until the gale had passed, then dropping down touched the sleeping child with its magic wand, whereupon Muriel became a butterfly.  The banshees carried the butterfly away with them and in their home she grew to be as beautiful a banshee as she had been a child.  But she grew and grew.  There was no stopping her.  She grew almost as rapidly as Jack’s beanstalk by which he climbed to the home of the giant.”

“What a fright she must have been,” interrupted a voice.

“As she grew she began to hate the banshees who had taken her from her home and made her become like them.  She determined to avenge herself.  This she did by making war upon all the other banshees.  So powerful was she and so familiar, too, with their hiding places in the flowers that she had little difficulty in clearing the country of the little pests.  Those who were not killed were driven from the country, all of which accounts for there being no banshees in Ireland now.  But they are to be found in some other parts of the world.”

“Are—­are there any over here?” questioned a timid voice from among the girls.

“I have never seen any,” replied Harriet.  “Still, we do not know.  A banshee might fly into any one of our tents on a dark night and change us into butterflies or banshees or something of that sort, and we wouldn’t know anything about it until we had been changed.  When we woke up we should be in so different a form that we shouldn’t know ourselves if we were to look into a mirror.”

“I know who that draped figure is now,” exclaimed Patricia.  “It’s that hateful Harriet Burrell.  Isn’t she silly and presuming?”