"Never was a sweeter child than she can be when she likes," said Lucy to herself, as she made her way with the nosegay and the message to Maudie's room.
Altogether things were beginning to look much brighter again, and, reassured as to Maudie's being really better, Mrs. Caryll went to bed that night for the first time for a fortnight, with a lighter heart.
"Maudie is much better," she had written that evening to Cousin Magdalen, "and it is not now likely that Hoodie will get the fever, as so many days have passed. Somehow I have never felt very uneasy about Hoodie from the first, though 'by rights,' as the children say, she should have had it and not poor Maudie, as it all came through her disobedience. And even if she had got it, I should not have felt so anxious as about Maudie—Hoodie is so very strong. But I hope now that we need not be anxious about either, and that our troubles are passing over."
Poor Mrs. Caryll would not have written so cheerfully had she known that that very afternoon Lucy's fears about Hoodie had again been aroused. The little girl would not eat anything at tea-time, though she drank eagerly two or three cups of milk. And after tea she said her head ached, and she was so sleepy and tired that Lucy thought it well to put her early to bed.
"Such a pity," thought Lucy, "just when she was looking so bright this morning. I wish I could think she had just caught cold, but the weather's so fine, it's not likely."
All night Hoodie tossed about uneasily. She started and talked in her sleep, and by morning she looked so flushed and strange that Lucy felt that she must at once tell Martin, and that there could be no question of Hoodie's getting up and being dressed. She wanted to get up, poor little girl, but her head felt so giddy when she raised it from the pillow that she was glad to lay it down again. And before the day was many hours older, there was no doubt that Hoodie had got the fever.
She knew it herself, though nothing was said about it before her, and she had her own thoughts about it in her mind, which she expressed to Lucy when no one else was there.
"I've got the affection fever, Lucy," she said. "I'm sure I have, 'cos I asked God to make Maudie better 'cos it wasn't her fault, and I said I wouldn't mind if I had it, 'cos it was my fault."
And poor Lucy, not knowing what to say, turned away to hide the tears in her eyes.
"I don't think we need be anxious about her," said Mrs. Caryll to the doctor, "she is so much stronger than Maudie."