But they dared not approach
the hut where Muriel made her home, in the daytime. At night little Muriel
was sound asleep behind closed doors. There was no way for the banshees
and the wood nymphs and the sprites to get into the house and take her
while she slept, for there always was a fire in the fireplace. As
everybody knows a fairy cannot pass through flames without singeing her
wings----"
"Why didn't thhe wear water wingth?" piped Tommy Thompson.
"Every night the fairies used to perch in the flowers and under the
shamrock that grew in Muriel's door yard, waiting and hoping to catch the
little one and kidnap her."
"Some one should have called the police," ventured Margery.
"If the sprites could reach Muriel," went on Harriet, ignoring Margery's
flippant remark, "they could quickly transform her into something else and
in that manner get her away. You see these were bad fairies and gnomes and
sprites and things."
"Yeth," agreed Tommy. "I thee."
"Well, one night a very powerful banshee came along and asked them what
they were doing there. They told it they were waiting for the beautiful
child Muriel that they might bear her away, but that they could not get to
her.
"'Oho, aha!' cried the banshee. 'I have a plan. I will call upon the
friend of my people, the west wind, to blow hard.
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