FLOWN.
"One flew away, and then there was none."
Three Little Birds.
Hoodie sat alone in the nursery, wrathful and sore. All the pleasure in the little bird and the beautiful cage seemed to have gone.
"I don't love her neither, not now," she said to herself. "I don't think—no, I really don't think I love anybody, 'cos nobody loves me, and ev'ybody thinks I'm naughty. Never mind—I'll go away some day. As soon as ever I'm big enough I'll go kite away and never come back again, and I sha'n't care what anybody says then."
There was some comfort though of a rather vague kind in this thought. Hoodie sat swinging her legs backwards and forwards, while queer fancies of where she would go—what she would do, once she was "big enough," chased each other round her busy little brain.
Suddenly a sound in the passage outside the nursery door made her look up just in time to see the door open and Magdalen, leading tearful Hec by the hand, followed by Maudie, Duke, and Martin, come in.
Hoodie looked up with some curiosity.
"Hoodie," said Magdalen, "Hec wants to tell you how sorry he is that you have got blamed on his account. It was he that touched the basket and knocked it over. He ran into my room to look at the bird without Martin's knowing he had left the nursery, and he was so afraid that he had hurt the little bird, by knocking it over, that he didn't like to tell. Kiss him and speak kindly to him, poor little boy, Hoodie dear. He has been so unhappy."
Hoodie gravely contemplated her little brother, but without giving any signs of obeying her cousin's request.
"I have been unhappy too," she said, "and it wasn't my fault. It was Hec's."
"Well, then," said Magdalen, "it should make you the more sorry for Hec. He has had the unhappiness of knowing it was his fault, which is the worst unhappiness of all."
Hoodie threw back her head.
"I don't think so," she said. "I think the worst is when people alvays says you're naughty when you're not."
"I am sorry you thought I said you were naughty when you weren't, Hoodie," said Magdalen, "but you thought I meant more than I did. As soon as I thought about it quietly I felt sure you hadn't touched the basket—and even more sure, that if you had been tempted to touch it, you would have said so."
"'Cos Hec toldened you it was him," said Hoodie.
"No, before Hec said a word, I said to Martin I was sure it wasn't you."
Hoodie looked up with a new light in her eyes.
"Did you?" she said, as if hardly able to believe it.
"Yes, indeed, Miss Hoodie," said Martin, "Miss King did say so. And very kind of her it was, to trust you so, for you did look very funny when I said you had been a few minutes alone in the room."
Hoodie flamed round upon her.
"It's vezzy nasty of you to say that, Martin," she exclaimed violently. "Vezzy nasty. You alvays think I'm naughty. I daresay I did look funny, 'cos I was temptationed, awful temptationed to touch the bird, but I wouldn't, no I wouldn't, 'cos I'd p'omised."
And at last her mingled feelings found relief in a burst of sobs.
The sight was too much for Hec, already in a sorely depressed and tearful condition. He threw his arms round Hoodie, nearly dragging her off her chair in his endeavours to get her shaggy head down to the level of his own close-cropped dark one for an embrace.
"Oh Hoodie, Hoodie, dear Hoodie, don't cry," he beseeched her. "It's all Hec's fault. Naughty Hec. Oh Hoodie, please 'agive me and kiss me, and I'll never, never touch your bird again."
