range, so self-willed, and yet
babyish, so heartless, and yet so impressionable. A sharp word or tone
even would make her cry, and she was sensitive to even less than that,
yet seemingly quite careless of the trouble and distress she caused to
others.

"My good little Maudie," said Mrs. Caryll, "why should not Hoodie too be
a good and understandable little girl?" she added to herself.

And what were the thoughts in Hoodie's queer little brain; what were the
feelings in her queer little heart, when Martin had safely tucked her
into her own nice little cot, and, rather shortly, bidden her lie quite
still and not disturb her brothers when they came up to bed?

"I wish I had stayed with little baby's mother," she said to herself.
"Nobody was glad for me to come home. They is all ugly 'sings. Nobody
kissened me. If it wasn't for zat ugly man I'd go back there, I would,
whatever Martin said."

* * * * *

"I really think sometimes that there's something wanting in her nature,"
said Hoodie's mother, sadly, that same evening. She had been listening
to Martin's account of the meeting at the cottage, and was now telling
over the whole affair in the drawing-room, for Mr. Caryll had only
returned home late that evening, as he had been some way by train to
meet a visitor who was coming to stay for a time at his house. This was
a cousin of his wife's, a young lady named Magdalen King, who occupied
the important position of Maudie's godmother. It was some years since
Cousin Magdalen had seen the children, but she had so often received
descriptions of them from their mother that she seemed to know them
quite well. She listened with great interest to the account of Hoodie's
escapade.

"She must be a strange little girl," she remarked, quietly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Caryll, "so strange that, as I said, I really think
sometimes there is something wanting in her nature."

"Or unawakened," said Magdalen. "I don't pretend to understand children
well--you know I was an only child--but still a little child's nature
cannot be very easy to understand at the best of times. It must be so
folded up, as it were, like a little half-opened bud. And then
children's power of expressing themselves is so small--they must often
feel themselves misunderstood and yet not know how to say even that. And
oh, dear, what a puzzle life and the world and everything must seem to
them!"

"Not to them only, my dear Magdalen," said