But Dr. Reynolds did not reply very heartily; the truth being that he saw from the first that Hoodie was likely to be much more ill than Maudie had been. And Hoodie herself from the first, too, seemed to have a strange, babyish instinct that it was so. "I'm glad Maudie is better," she said often during the first day or two, to Lucy, "'cos you know it wasn't her fault. I don't mind having the affection fever, but it is rather sore. Everybody loves Maudie so, it's a good thing she's better." "But everybody loves you too, Miss Hoodie," said Lucy, tenderly, "specially when you're such a good, patient little girl." Hoodie made a movement as if she would have shaken her head, only the poor little head was too heavy and aching to shake. "No, Lucy," she said, "not like Maudie, 'cos she's so good, and I'm not. I did try, but I had to leave off. And my bird's dead, you know, though I did ask God to take care of it every time I said my prayers. But I'm glad God's made Maudie better. I 'appose it's 'cos she's good. But I don't mind having the fever--not now my bird's dead, 'cos he did love me, didn't he, Lucy?" Her mind was beginning to wander, and for many days and nights Hoodie knew nothing of anything that passed about her. Sometimes she seemed in a sort of stupor, at others she would talk incessantly in her little weak childish voice, till it made one's heart ache to hear her. She did not suffer so much from her throat as Maudie had done, though otherwise so much more ill. The fever seemed to have seized her in its strong, cruel arms with so hard a grasp, that often and often it appeared to those about her as if it never again would let her go, but would carry her away out of their sight, without her even being able to bid them good-bye--murmuring ever those sad words which seemed to be burnt into her childish brain, about nobody loving her because she wasn't good like Maudie, about having tried in vain to be good, and that her birdie was dead and God didn't love her either, always ending up that it was a good thing Maudie was better, "wasn't it, Lucy?" Though when poor Lucy choked down her tears to answer cheerfully "Yes, indeed, Miss Hoodie," poor Hoodie could not hear her voice, and began again the same weary murmurings. It was very sad for them all--most sad of all for Hoodie's mother, whose heart grew sore as she listened to her poor little girl's faint words. It seemed to her that never before had she understood her child, and the great longing for love that had been hidden in her queer-tempered, fanciful nature. "Oh, Hoodie darling, we do love you--dearly, dearly," she would sometimes say as she bent over her; but the bright eyes, too bright by far, gazed up without seeing, and the weary little head, shorn of its pretty tangle of fuzzy hair, moved restlessly on the pillow, while Hoodie kept talking about her dead bird and nobody loving her, through the slow weary hours while life and death were fighting over her little bed.