knowing how far they had gone, to the old cross-road that leads to
Owney. It seemed that there the horses' hoofs and carriage wheels
rolled up a wonderful dust, which being caught in one of those eddies
that whirl the dust up into a column, on the calmest day, enveloped
the children for a moment, and passed whirling on towards Lisnavoura,
the carriage, as they fancied, driving in the centre of it; but
suddenly it subsided, the straws and leaves floated to the ground, the
dust dissipated itself, but the white horses and the lackeys, the
gilded carriage, the lady and their little golden-haired brother were
gone.

At the same moment suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun
disappeared behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight. Each
child felt the transition like a shock--and the sight of the rounded
summit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a
new fear.

They screamed their brother's name after him, but their cries were
lost in the vacant air. At the same time they thought they heard a
hollow voice say, close to them, "Go home."

Looking round and seeing no one, they were scared, and hand in
hand--the little girl crying wildly, and the boy white as ashes, from
fear, they trotted homeward, at their best speed, to tell, as we have
seen, their strange story.

Molly Ryan never more saw her darling. But something of the lost
little boy was seen by his former playmates.

Sometimes when their mother was away earning a trifle at haymaking,