"Thank you, Maudie's godmother," she said condescendingly. "I thought perhaps you had forgottened."
"And you wouldn't thank me till you were sure—was that it—eh, Hoodie?" said Magdalen.
One of her funny twinkles came into Hoodie's green eyes.
"I like peoples what doesn't forget," she remarked, with a toss of her shaggy head.
Magdalen turned away to hide her amusement, but Hoodie's mother whispered rather dolefully, "Magdalen, was there ever such a child?"
And Hoodie heard the words, and her little face grew hard and sullen.
"I'm always naughty," she said to herself. "Naughty when I tell true, and naughty when I don't tell true. Nobody loves me, but I'll teach my bird to love me."
"What is to be done about a cage for this little creature?" said Magdalen, looking up from her occupation of feeding the greenfinch with quillfuls of bread and milk. "Isn't there an old one anywhere about, that would do?"
"I'm afraid not," said Hoodie's mother. "What can we do?"
"Leave it in the basket for the present," said Magdalen. "And—if Hoodie is very good, perhaps——"