five copper pennies would buy a very good one, although the roses of
the five-cent kind were pronounced by those most interested to be
"little bits of things."

Abby talked to the girls a while, and then went home to exhibit her
purchase. Her mother commented approvingly upon it; and the little
girl ran down to the kitchen to show it to Delia the cook, who had
lived with the family ever since Larry was a baby.

Delia was loud in her admiration.

"Oh, on this day they do have great doings in Ireland!" said she; "but
nowadays, to be sure, it's nothing to what it was in old times. It was
on May eve, I've heard tell, that St. Patrick lit the holy fire at
Tara, in spite of the ancient pagan laws. And in the days when the
country was known as the island of saints and of scholars, sure
throughout the length and breadth of the land the monastery bells rang
in the May with praises of the Holy Mother; and the canticles in her
honor were as ceaseless as the song of the birds. And 'twas the
fairies that were said to have great power at this season--"

"Delia, you know very well there are no fairies," interrupted Abby.

"Well, some foolish folk thought there were, anyhow," answered Delia.
"And in Maytide the children and cattle, the milk and the butter, were
kept guarded from them. Many and many an evening I've listened to my
mother that's dead and gone--God rest her soul!--telling of an old
woman that, at the time of the blooming of the hawthorn, always put a
spent coal under the churn, and another beneath the grandchild's
cradle, because that was said to drive the fairies away; and how