afternoon, if I could leave you three
alone for a little."

"Susan may stay with them," said Mrs. Caryll, who just then came into
the nursery to see if Maudie was ready. "It is too damp still for the
boys to go out, but Hoodie can play in the garden a little. She never
catches cold and she will be the better for a run--eh, Hoodie?"

No answer. Mrs. Caryll turned to Martin with a question in her face.
"Anything wrong again?" it seemed to say.

Martin shook her head.

"I think not, ma'am," she said in a very low voice, "but really there's
no saying. But I think she'll be all right once you're started with Miss
Magdalen."

Mrs. Caryll said no more. She took Maudie by the hand and left the
nursery, only nodding good-bye to the little boys as she passed through
the doorway.

"Good-bye, darlings," said Maudie. "I'll bring you back something nice
for tea."

"Dood-bye, dear Maudie," called out Hec and Duke in return. Then they
flew--no, I can hardly use that word with regard to their sturdy little
legs' trot across the room--they trotted off to the window to see the
carriage as it passed the corner of the drive and to kiss their little
hands to Mamma and Maudie. And Hoodie remained determinedly looking out
of the other window, from which no drive and no carriage were to be
seen.

"Nobody calls me darling. Nobody cares for Hoodie," she said to herself.
"Nebber mind. Hoodie will go far, far."

When Martin called to her a few minutes afterwards, to put her hat and
jacket on for the run in the garden, which her mother had spoken of, she
came at once, and stood quite still while her nurse dressed her. The
submission struck Martin as rather suspicious.

"Now Miss Hoodie, my dear," she said, "you'll not go on the grass or
where it's wet. Just run about on the nice dry gravel for half an hour
or so, and if you see the gardener about, you may ask him to show you
the rabbits."

Hoodie looked up in Martin's face with a rather curious expression.

"I won't run in the grass," was all she said. Martin let her go off
without any misgiving. For all Hoodie's strange temper she was in some
ways a particularly sensible child for her age. She was quite to be
trusted to play alone in the garden, for instance--she might have been
safely left within reach of the most beautiful flowers in the
conservatory without any special warning; not one would have been
touched. She was truly, as Martin said, a strange mixture and
contradiction.