door, and
tell Martin they're for Miss Maudie with Miss Hoodie's love, and she's
very glad she's better."

[Illustration: "Tell Martin they're for Miss Maudie with Miss Hoodie's
love."]

"Miss Maudie will be pleased, I'm sure," said Lucy, thinking to herself
as she said so how very pretty Miss Hoodie was looking. Her eyes were so
bright, and her cheeks so rosy, and on her face there was such a pretty
smile while she was arranging the flowers, that Lucy could not resist
stooping down to kiss her.

"Never was a sweeter child than she can be when she likes," said Lucy to
herself, as she made her way with the nosegay and the message to
Maudie's room.

Altogether things were beginning to look much brighter again, and,
reassured as to Maudie's being really better, Mrs. Caryll went to bed
that night for the first time for a fortnight, with a lighter heart.

"Maudie is much better," she had written that evening to Cousin
Magdalen, "and it is not now likely that Hoodie will get the fever, as
so many days have passed. Somehow I have never felt very uneasy about
Hoodie from the first, though 'by rights,' as the children say, she
should have had it and not poor Maudie, as it all came through her
disobedience. And even if she had got it, I should not have felt so
anxious as about Maudie--Hoodie is so very strong. But I hope now that
we need not be anxious about either, and that our troubles are passing
over."

Poor Mrs. Caryll would not have written so cheerfully had she known that
that very afternoon Lucy's fears about Hoodie had again been aroused.
The little girl would not eat anything at tea-time, though she drank
eagerly two or three cups of milk. And after tea she said her head
ached, and she was so sleepy and tired that Lucy thought it well to put
her early to bed.

"Such a pity," thought Lucy, "just when she was looking so bright this
morning. I wish I could think she had just caught cold, but the
weather's so fine, it's not likely."

All night Hoodie tossed about uneasily. She started and talked in her
sleep, and by morning she looked so flushed and strange that Lucy felt
that she must at once tell Martin, and that there could be no question
of Hoodie's getting up and being dressed. She wanted to get up, poor
little girl, but her head felt so giddy when she raised it from the
pillow that she was glad to lay it down again. And before the day was
many hours older, there was no doubt that Hoodie had got the fever.