"And doesn't Hoodie have any?"
"Sometimes," replied Maudie. "When she's in a good humour. When she's not, it's no use trying. I heard Miss Meade say so one day, and so now Hoodie very often says she's in a bad humour whether she is or not, 'cos she doesn't like lessons."
"She says she's in a bad humour," repeated Magdalen, astonished.
"Oh yes, she just calls out to Miss Meade, 'oh, one's come, one's come,' that means a bad humour's come, and once she says that, nothing's any good. She sometimes puts her fingers in her ears if Miss Meade tries to speak to her. So mamma settled it was no good doing anything; it did so interrumpt my lessons, and I'm getting big, you know. But please, Cousin Magdalen, will you come with us just the very minute after breakfast, and then there'll be time?"
"Very well," said Magdalen. "I'll be ready 'timmediate,' I promise you."
Whether or no Miss King knew much about children, she knew enough to understand that to them a promise, even about a small matter, is a very sacred thing. And she took care not to forfeit their confidence. No sooner did the four little figures appear on the lawn just outside the dining-room window, than she started up from the table where, though breakfast was finished, she was loitering a little in pleasant talk with her friends.
"Why, where are you off to, in such a hurry?" said Mrs. Caryll.
"I beg your pardon," said Magdalen, laughing. "I promised the children to go with them before their governess comes, to—"
"Excuse my interrupting you," said Mr. Caryll, "but I would just like to see if I can't finish the sentence for you. I am certain they are going to take you to see the bantams, now aren't they? They have all four, Hoodie especially, got bantams on the brain."
He opened the glass-door as he spoke, and Miss King passed through. Three of the children ran forward joyously to meet her, the fourth followed more slowly, and from her way of moving, Cousin Magdalen strongly suspected that either "one" had just come, or that "one" had not yet gone. There was a decidedly black-doggy look about her fat little shoulders.