No one’s child at all. She often dreams that someone has gone by When there was nothing but a puff of wind. MAIRE BRUIN. They will not bring good luck into the house, For they have blown the primroses away; Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them, For are not they, likewise, children of God? FATHER HART. Colleen, they are the children of the Fiend, And they have power until the end of Time, When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle And hack them into pieces. MAIRE BRUIN. He will smile, Father, perhaps, and open His great door, And call the pretty and kind into His house. FATHER HART. Did but the lawless angels see that door, They would fall, slain by everlasting peace; And when such angels knock upon our doors Who goes with them must drive through the same storm. [_A knock at the door. MAIRE BRUIN opens it and then goes to the dresser and fills a porringer with milk and hands it through the door and takes it back empty and closes the door._ MAIRE BRUIN. A little queer old woman cloaked in green, Who came to beg a porringer of milk. BRIDGET BRUIN. The good people go asking milk and fire Upon May Eve.—Woe on the house that gives, For they have power upon it for a year. I knew you would bring evil on the house. MAURTEEN BRUIN. Who was she? MAIRE BRUIN. Both the tongue and face were strange. MAURTEEN BRUIN. Some strangers came last week to Clover Hill; She must be one of them. BRIDGET BRUIN. I am afraid. MAURTEEN BRUIN. The priest will keep all harm out of the house. FATHER HART. The cross will keep all harm out of the house While it hangs there. MAURTEEN BRUIN. Come, sit beside me, colleen, And put away your dreams of discontent, For I would have you light up my last days Like a bright torch of pine, and when I die I will make you the wealthiest hereabout: For hid away where nobody can find I have a stocking full of silver and gold. BRIDGET BRUIN. You are the fool of every pretty face, And I must pinch and pare that my son’s wife May have all kinds of ribbons for her head. MAURTEEN BRUIN.