She looked up from her wheel as we entered--but she did not seem surprised at our coming.

Her eyes were very bright--not like the eyes of an old person.

She spoke to my father at once--her voice was very clear and musical.

'Is it you, John Royal ?' she said--'and you have brought your fey lass along with you!' That was the first time I ever heard the word 'fey.' I did not understand it then." "And do you understand it now ?" asked Aloysius.
"Yes"-- she replied,--"I understand it now! It is a wonderful thing to be born 'fey'! But it is a kind of witchcraft,--and you would be displeased--" "At what should I be displeased ?" and the priest bent his eyes very searchingly upon her--"At the fact,--which none can disprove,--that 'there are things in heaven and earth' which are beyond our immediate knowledge?
That there are women strangely endowed with premonitory instincts land preternatural gifts?
Dear child, there is nothing in all this that can or could displease me! My faith--the faith of my Church--is founded on the preternatural endowment of a woman!" She lifted her eyes to his, and a little sigh came from her lips.
"Yes, I know what you mean!"-- she said--"But I am sure you cannot possibly realise the weird nature of old Alison! She made me stand before her, just where the light of the sun streamed through the open doorway, and she looked at me for a long time with such a steady piercing glance that I felt as if her eyes were boring through my flesh.

Then she got up from her spinning and pushed away the wheel, and stretched out both her hands towards me, crying out in quite a strange, wild voice--'Morgana! Morgana! Go your ways, child begotten of the sun and shower!--go your ways! Little had mortal father or mother to do with your making, for you are of the fey folk! Go your ways with your own people!--you shall hear them whispering in the night and singing in the morning,--and they shall command you and you shall obey!--they shall beckon and you shall follow! Nothing of mortal flesh and blood shall hold you--no love shall bind you,--no hate shall wound you!--the clue is given into your hand,--the secret is disclosed--and the spirits of air and fire and water have opened a door that you may enter in! Hark!--I can hear their voices calling "Morgana! Morgana!" Go your ways, child!--go hence and far!--the world is too small for your wings!' She looked so fierce and grand and terrible that I was frightened--I was only a girl of sixteen, and I ran to my father and caught his hand.