"Oh, Lucy," cried Hoodie, "he's getting better," but as she said the words, birdie fell over on his side, uttered the feeblest of chirps, and with a little quiver lay still—quite still—he was dead. The fright had killed him.
Hoodie looked up in Lucy's face with tearless eyes.
"Is he dead?" she said.
"Yes, Miss Hoodie dear," said Lucy, softly stroking the ruffled feathers, "he is dead, but oh dear, Miss Hoodie, it isn't so bad as if the cat had torn and scratched him all over. You should think of that."
But Hoodie could think of nothing in the shape of comfort. She held the little dead bird out to Lucy.
"Take him and bury him," she said. "He can't love me any more, so take him away. All the loving's dead. He was the only thing that loved me. I won't try to be good any more. God is very unkind."
"Miss Hoodie!" exclaimed Lucy, considerably shocked. But Hoodie just looked at her with a hard set expression in her white face.
"You don't understand," she said. "Take him away and bury him."
She turned to the door and left the room. She went slowly back to her own room, and got into her little bed again. Then, like the old Hebrew king, poor little English Hoodie "turned her face to the wall," and wept and wept as if never again there could be for her brightness in the sunshine, or love and happiness in life.
"My bird, my bird," she moaned. That was all she could say.