"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." So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea. "And of course Tom married Ellie?" My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess? "And Tom's dog?" Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog-days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom's dog up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm weather this year. And that is the end of my story. MORAL _And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?_