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"Why not?" and Don Aloysius returned her s to do with your happiness I should like to hear"
"Well, you see, you are a priest," went on Morgana, slowly, "and she is a witch Oh yes, truly!--a real witch! There is no one in all that part of the Highlands that does not know of her, and the power she has! She is very, very old--some folks say she is randfather--she caht I was born, and said strange things about a 'May child'--I was born in May We went--as I tell you--to see her, and found her spinning She looked up from her wheel as we entered--but she did not seeht--not like the eyes of an old person She spoke to my father at once--her voice was very clear and musical 'Is it you, John Royal?' she said--'and you have brought your fey lass along with you!' That was the first time I ever heard the word 'fey' I did not understand it then"
"And do you understand it now?" asked Aloysius
"Yes"--she replied,--"I understand it now! It is a wonderful thing to be born 'fey'! But it is a kind of witchcraft,--and you would be displeased--"
"At what should I be displeased?" and the priest bent his eyes very searchingly upon her--"At the fact,--which none can disprove,--that 'there are things in heaven and earth' which are beyond our iely endoith preifts? Dear child, there is nothing in all this that can or could displease me! My faith--the faith of my Church--is founded on the preternatural endowment of a woh came from her lips
"Yes, I knohat you mean!"--she said--"But I am sure you cannot possibly realise the weird nature of old Alison! She ht of the sun strea tilance that I felt as if her eyes were boring throughand pushed away the wheel, and stretched out both her hands towards ana! Go your ways, child begotten of the sun and shower!--go your ways! Little had , for you are of the fey folk! Go your ith your own people!--you shall hear the,--and they shall command you and you shall obey!--they shall beckon and you shall follow! Nothing of mortal flesh and blood shall hold you--no love shall bind you,--no hate shall wound you!--the clue is given into your hand,--the secret is disclosed--and the spirits of air and fire and water have opened a door that you ana! Morgana!" Go your ways, child!--go hence and far!--the world is too srand and terrible that I was frightened--I was only a girl of sixteen, and I ran to ently to Alison, but she seemed quite beyond herself and unable to listen 'Your way lies down a different road, John Royal'--she said--'You that herded sheep on these hills and that now hoard millions of money--of what use to you is your wealth? You are but the worker,--gathering gold for HER--the "fey" child born in an hour of May o, but she must stay,--her own folk have work for her to do!' Then hten the child!' and she suddenly changed in her tone and hten her for the world!' And my father pushed me towards her and whispered--'Ask her to bless you before you go' So I just knelt before her, tre very much, and said, 'Dear Alison, bless me!'--and she stared at me and lifted her old brorinkled hands and laid thee as to herself, and afterwards she said, 'Spirit of all that is and ever shall be, bless this child who belongs to thee, and not to man! Give her the power to do what is commanded, to the end' And at this she stopped suddenly and bending down she lifted my head in her two hands and looked at me hard--'Poor child, poor child! Never a love for you--never a love! Alone you are, alone you o, and sat down again to her spinning-wheel, nor would she say another word--neither to me nor to my father"