And what was the song which she sang?  Ah, my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.  But have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you.

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water.  And when they came to her she looked up, and behold, it was Ellie.

“Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “how you are grown!”

“Oh, Tom,” said she, “how you are grown, too!”

And no wonder; they were both quite grown up—­he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman.

“Perhaps I may be grown,” she said.  “I have had time enough; for I have been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought you were never coming.”

“Many a hundred years?” thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he could think of nothing but Ellie.  So he stood and looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.

At last they heard the fairy say, “Attention, children.  Are you never going to look at me again?”

“We have been looking at you all this while,” they said.  And so they thought they had been.

“Then look at me once more,” she said.

They looked—­and both of them cried out at once, “Oh, who are you, after all?”

“You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.”

“No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite beautiful now!”

“To you,” said the fairy.  “But look again.”

“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.

“But you are grown quite young again.”

“To you,” said the fairy.  “Look again.”

“You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!”

And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.

“My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.”

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.

“Now read my name,” said she, at last.

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

“Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling; and then she turned to Ellie.

“You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie.  He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man, because he has done the thing he did not like.”