at night the moon wakes up and sends round
to draw the curtains, and all the stars come out, rubbing their eyes."

"They hasn't any hands--how can they rub their eyes?" objected Duke.

"You silly boy," said Hoodie, very sharply. "How do _you_ know? You've
never been in the stars."

"But you hasn't neither," he persisted.

"Never mind. I know, and if I didn't I couldn't tell you. That's how
people can tell stories. Well, the stars come out, lots and lots of
them, and go running about all night, and then in the morning the moon
sends round to draw all the curtains again and they're all to go to
sleep."

"But some nights the moon isn't there and the stars are there without
her. How is that, Hoodie?" said Cousin Magdalen, rather mischievously.

"You think so 'cos you don't know; but I do," said Hoodie, nodding her
head sagaciously. "The moon's _alvays_ there, only sometimes she has a
cold, and then she wraps up her white face in a shawl and you can't see
her."

There was a twinkle of fun in Hoodie's green eyes as she said this that
showed her cousin that her little teasing was understood.

"Oh, indeed," she said, gravely, "I did _not_ know. Thank you, Hoodie,
for explaining to me."

"And so," continued Hoodie, "the goblins never saw anything of day
things, but they saw very funny things at night when they went sailing
about on the star."

"Stars don't go sailing about," objected Maudie. "They're always quite
still."

"They're _not_ then," said Hoodie: "that shows you don't listen, Maudie.
I heard Papa say one day that the stars are going as fast as fast, only
they go _so_ fast that we can't see them."

"What nonsense! Isn't it nonsense, Cousin Magdalen?" pleaded Maudie.

"No," said Miss King. "It is true they are moving faster than we can
even fancy, but the reason we can't see them moving isn't _exactly_ what
Hoodie says."

"What is it then?"

"I can't explain it to you just now--it would not be very easy for you
to understand, and if I explained it, it would take too much time and we
shouldn't hear the rest of Hoodie's story. I think we should let poor
Hoodie go on with her story now without interrupting her any more."

Hoodie required no further bidding.

"Well," she said, "all night long the goblins went sailing about in the
star, and sometimes they saw very funny things. They were up so high
that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see
the big ponds up in the sky where th