"And what do you think it did?"
"Carried away the child?" suggested a voice.
"Did you ever hear of anything so perfectly ridiculous?" exclaimed Cora
Kidder.
"I gueth it went to thleep and fell off into the fire," suggested Tommy.
"No. It waited until the gale had passed, then dropping down touched the
sleeping child with its magic wand, whereupon Muriel became a butterfly.
The banshees carried the butterfly away with them and in their home she
grew to be as beautiful a banshee as she had been a child. But she grew
and grew. There was no stopping her. She grew almost as rapidly as Jack's
beanstalk by which he climbed to the home of the giant."
"What a fright she must have been," interrupted a voice.
"As she grew she began to hate the banshees who had taken her from her
home and made her become like them. She determined to avenge herself. This
she did by making war upon all the other banshees. So powerful was she and
so familiar, too, with their hiding places in the flowers that she had
little difficulty in clearing the country of the little pests. Those who
were not killed were driven from the country, all of which accounts for
there being no banshees in Ireland now. But they are to be found in some
other parts of the world."
"Are--are there any over here?" questioned a timid voice from among the
girls.
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