dren, so she can't disturb them even if she screams
all day."

Hoodie stopped again as suddenly as before.

"I won't go to zour room," she said. "I don't like zou now--not one
bit."

Magdalen glanced at Mrs. Caryll.

"May I take my own way with her!" her glance seemed to say. Mrs. Caryll
nodded her head, and notwithstanding Martin's whispered warning, "Oh,
Miss King, you don't _know_ what a work you'll have with her," Magdalen
turned to Hoodie, and before the child in the least understood what she
was about, she had picked her up in her strong young arms and was half
way down the passage before Hoodie's surprise had given her breath to
begin her roars again.

She was opening her mouth to do so, when her cousin stopped for a
moment.

"Now, Hoodie," she said, "_listen_. It was kind of you to want to get me
a quite fresh egg for my breakfast, but it isn't kind of you at all to
make that disagreeable noise, and to kick and fight so because I want to
take you to my room."

"I don't care," said Hoodie, "I don't like zou, and I will cry if I
like. I don't like any people."

"I am very sorry to find you are so silly," said Cousin Magdalen. "If
you were older and understood better you would not talk like that."

"I would if I liked," persisted Hoodie. "Big peoples can do whatever zey
likes, and if I was big I could too."

"Big people _can't_ do whatever they like," said Miss King, "and nice
big people never like to do things that other people don't like too."

"Don't zey?" said Hoodie, meditatively. By this time they were safely
shut into Miss King's room and Hoodie was plumped down into the middle
of her cousin's bed--"Don't zey? Zen I don't want to be a nice big
people. I want to be the kind that does whatever zey likes zerselves."

Miss King gave a slight sigh--half of amusement, half of despair. She
was beginning to understand that Hoodie's reformation was indeed no easy
matter.

"Very well, then. You had better go on screaming if you like it so
much," she said, sitting down on the side of the bed and wondering to
herself what would become of the world, if all the children in it were
as tiresome to manage as Hoodie. In at the window the daylight was
creeping timidly; all kinds of pretty colours were to be seen in the
sky, and the birds were beginning their cheerful chatter. Still it was
very early, and poor cousin Magdalen was sleepy. Was there _anything_
that could make Hoodie go to sleep for an hour or two