For some time after Miss King left, things went on pretty smoothly, very smoothly, perhaps I should say. Hoodie did not forget about trying to be good, especially in her bird's presence. It became a sort of conscience to her, and as, by a law which is a great help in learning to be good,—though also a danger the more in learning wrong,—by the law of habit, every time one tries to keep under one's ill temper, makes it easier for the next time, it grew really easier for Hoodie to check her naughty cross words and looks from the way she kept them down when beside her little pet. And Martin and every one began to think it had been a happy thing for Hoodie and those about her that her cousin had taught her how to tame and care for the pretty greenfinch.
It was so pretty, poor little birdie! It grew so tame that, with the window shut of course, it spent a great part of its time flying freely about the ante-room where stood its cage. It would "pouch" not only on Hoodie's finger but on her shoulder, her head—anywhere she chose to place it. And in an instant, at the sound of her call, it would fly to her. Every morning it was her first thought, every night her last. And night and morning when she said her prayers, she never forgot to thank God for being "so kind as to send birdie back again," and to beg Him to keep birdie safe and well.
One evening—how it happened I cannot tell,—it was very hot and sultry weather, with thunder about, and at such times people are careless about closing doors and windows—one evening, by some mischance which no one ever could explain, the window of "birdie's room," as it had come to be called, was either left open, or flew open in some way. Hoodie was sure she had closed it when she went to bid her pet good night, but it was what is called a lattice window, and these are apt to fly open unless very firmly shut. Birdie was safe in his cage however, and the door of that was fortunately—even when you hear what happened, children, you will agree with me that that part of it was fortunate—quite fastened. Early next morning, one of the servants who slept in an attic above the ante-room, heard a noise below. She was a kind-hearted girl, and her first thought was of Miss Hoodie's bird. She got up at once, and hurrying down-stairs—it was not so very early after all, nearly six o'clock—ran to the ante-room. As she opened the door, to her horror a great big strange cat jumped out of the window.
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy, "can he have got at birdie?"
The cage was not to be seen—but in another moment Lucy spied it on the floor, knocked down off the table by the cruel cat. He had not got at birdie—birdie lay in one corner, quite still as if dead, and yet when Lucy with trembling fingers unfastened the cage door and tenderly lifted out his little occupant, she could see no injury, not the slightest scratch.
"His heart's beating still," she said, "perhaps it's only the fright of the fall," and she was turning to the window to examine birdie more closely, when a sound behind her made her start, and turning round she saw in the doorway the bird's little mistress, poor Hoodie herself. She was in her nightgown only—she had run from her room with her little bare feet, having heard Lucy passing down-stairs, with an instinct of fear that some evil had befallen her pet.
"Lucy, Lucy," she cried, "what is the matter? It isn't anything the matter with birdie. Oh, dear Lucy, don't say it is."
Her voice somehow, as Lucy said afterwards, sounded like that of a grown-up person—all the babyishness seemed to have gone out of it—she did not cry, she stood there white as a sheet, clasping her hands in a way that went to Lucy's heart.
"Oh, Miss Hoodie," she replied, the tears running down her face, for she was very tender-hearted, "oh dear, Miss Hoodie, don't take on so. I hope birdie's not badly hurt. The cat didn't touch him. It knocked over the cage, and it must have been the fall; but perhaps he's more frightened than hurt."
"Give him to me, Lucy," said Hoodie. "Let me hold him in my own hands. Oh, birdie dear, oh, birdie darling, don't you know me?" for birdie lay still and limp—almost as if dead already. Hoodie, forcing back the tears, whistled her usual call to him, and as its sound reached his ears, birdie seemed to quiver, raised his head, feebly flapped his wings, and tried, with a piteous attempt at shaking off the sleep from which he would never again awake, tried to rouse himself and to struggle to his feet.