"I won't be takened to Mamma. I won't, I won't. I'm not naughty. It's zou that's ugly and naughty," it screamed.
Mrs. Caryll gave a despairing glance at her cousin.
"Hoodie again!" she said.
Martin hastened forward as fast as she could, considering the difficulties in her way.
"Oh, ma'am," she exclaimed, looking nearly ready to cry, "I am so sorry, so sorry and ashamed to have such an upset in the house at this time of the night, or morning, I should say. It really must seem with all these troubles as if I wasn't fit to manage the children. And just as Miss King has come, too. But oh dear, ma'am, I don't know what to do with Miss Hoodie and her queer ways."
"But what is it, Martin? What has Hoodie been doing?" said Mrs. Caryll, rather impatiently. "Stop crying, Hoodie. You must," she added sternly, turning to the little girl, who was now regularly set agoing on one of her roars.
Hoodie took not the slightest notice, but roared on. Her mother turned again to Martin, shaking her head.
"No, ma'am," said Martin, "it's not the least use speaking to her. She has wakened all the others, of course—first with that nasty creature and then with her screaming."
"What nasty creature? For goodness' sake explain yourself, Martin."
"The cock, ma'am—the bantam cock," replied Martin, seeming quite astonished that Mrs. Caryll did not know all about it by instinct. "Miss Hoodie fetched it in in her basket, unbeknown to me, last night, and had it hidden under her bed. The creature was quite quiet all night, as is its nature, I suppose, and very likely frightened and not knowing where it was. But this morning all of a sudden it started the most awful screeching; it really sounded much worse than common crowing, or else it was hearing it half in one's sleep like. I thought, to be sure, one of those dear boys had got some awful fit. And to think it was nothing but Miss Hoodie's naughtiness—real mischievous naughtiness." Martin stopped, quite out of breath, and Hoodie's roars increased in violence.