“Don’t ye worry, darlin’.  Like as not when we get there the queen herself ’ll open a monsthrous big chest where they keeps all the faery clothes, an’ let us choose anythin’ at all we wants to wear.”

“Pants?” queried Peter, eagerly.

“Sure, an’ silk dresses an’ straw hats wi’ ribbon on them, an—­”

“Will shoes in the chest be?” Pancho was very anxious; he had never had a pair of shoes in all his six years.

Bridget beamed.  “Not i’ the chest; but I’ll be tellin’ ye how ye’ll come by them.  When we get there we’ll look about for a blackthorn-bush—­an’ there—­like as not—­in undther it—­will be a wee man wi’ a leather apron across his knee—­the leprechaun, big as life!”

“What’s him?”

“Faith I’m tellin’ ye—­’tis the faery cobbler.  An’ the minute he slaps the tail of his eye on us he’ll sing out:  ‘Hello, Pancho an’ Sandy an’ Susan an’ all o’ yez.  I’ve your boots finished, just.’  An’ wi’ that he’ll fetch down the nine pairs an’ hand them round.”

A sigh of blissful contentment started from the cot by the door, burbled down the length of the ward, and vanished out of the window.  Is there anything dearer to the pride of a child than boots—­new boots?

Bridget took up the dropped thread and went on.  “An’ afther that the leprechaun reaches for his crock o’ gold an’ pulls out a penny.  Ye can buy anythin’ i’ the whole world wi’ a faery penny.”

“Anythinks!” said Michael, skeptically.

“That’s what I said.”

“Could yer buy a dorg?” Peter asked, opening one renegade eye.

“Sure—­a million dogs.”

“Don’t want a million.  Want jus’ one real live black dorg—­named Toby—­wiv yeller spots an’ half-legs—­an’ long ears—­an’ a stand-up tail—­an’ legs—­an’ long—­long—­long—­” The renegade eye closed tight and Peter was smiling at something afar off.

An antiphonal chorus of yawns broke the hush that followed, while Bridget worked herself back under the covers.

“A ken the penny micht be buyin’ a hame,” came in a drowsy voice from Sandy’s crib. “‘Twad be a hame in Aberdeen—­wi’ trees an’ flo’ers an’ mickle wee creepit things—­an’—­Miss Peggie—­an’—­us—­”

“Sure, an’ it could be buyin’ a grand home in Irelan’, the same,” Bridget beamed; and then she added, struck forcibly with an afterthought:  “But what would be the sense of a home anywheres but here—­furninst—­within easy reach of a crutch or a wheeled chair?  Tell me that!”

Sandy grunted ambiguously; and Bridget took up again the thread of her recounting.

“Ye could never be guessin’ half o’ the sthrange adventures we’ll be havin’!  Like as not Sandy ‘ll be gettin’ his hump lifted off him.  I mind the story—­me mother often told it me.  There was a humpy back in Irelan’, once, who went always about wi’ song in his heart an’ another on his lips; an’ one day he fetched up inside a faery rath.  The