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 and the wind that he would guard her as his greatest treasure.

Autumn and winter passed, and the green spring-time was over everything. In every wood and coppice the songs of blackbirds and thrushes were heard, and all the little creatures of air and earth rejoiced in the sunlight and warm breezes. Tuirenn, too, sang as she sat in the wide sunny window of her room, stitching at her embroidery, and looking sometimes over the plain before her.

She was alone with her maids just now, for a few days before Illan had received a message calling him away; but any hour now he might return. Very reluctantly he had left Tuirenn, for in his heart of hearts he feared that Uchtdealb, the faery woman who loved him, would at some time or other put an enchantment on the woman he loved and had made his wife; so before leaving he charged her maids to watch her well, and allow no stranger near her.

A shadow fell across Tuirenn's work, and looking up she saw, standing by her side, a tall fair girl, with a strange look in her eyes