In another moment Michael had seized Dame Martha by the hand and was leading her into the cottage, followed by Paul and Mattie, looking very neat and clean in spite of their poor clothes, and in not a little excitement at this visit to the kind young man who had been their first friend in this strange land. "I hope you've not been waiting long," said Mike. "Oh no, thank you," the dame replied. "Just a very few minutes. We heard the church clock strike the half-hour as we drew near." The door was wide open. Hodge and Giles greeted the new-comers heartily, Hodge adding that they'd better set to at once, before the dishes got cold. But though Dame Martha had very good manners by nature and even by habit, for in her better days she had been a much-respected upper servant in an excellent family, she could not restrain an exclamation of the greatest astonishment when she caught sight of the wonderful display of good things, and perceived their appetising odour. "My dear boy--Michael!" she cried. "What extravagance is this? And you said it would be just a simple meal--'pot-luck' you called it, if I remember right?" "And pot-luck it is," he replied, laughing. "There's no reason that I know of why pot-luck shouldn't be good fare, as I hope you will find our dinner to be." There is no need to tell you how the feast was enjoyed. To begin with, it was flavoured not only with the "best sauce" of the old proverb--hunger--but also with the excellent additions of friendliness and gratitude and goodwill, and besides these even, there was a mysterious feeling of graciousness and prettiness over it all, which I am inclined to think must have been wafted with the viands from fairyland itself. Never had the children had such a treat, and being modest and unselfish and far from greedy they enjoyed it all the more, nor was there any necessity for their grandmother to warn them not to eat too much. Every one had enough--indeed Hodge's appetite seemed equal to that of two ordinary people--but yet when all had replied, "No thank you, nothing more," to Michael's hospitable offers, the dishes looked by no means empty, and though he made the children carry off a couple of oranges each, for a little Sunday treat at home, the pile of fruit scarcely appeared to have been touched. The thought did cross Michael's head that he wished he could keep the remains of the feast in his larder. But "No," he decided, "it would be greedy and might displease the fairies."