"Mamma," said one of the little boys, "has Hoodie been _naughty_? Aren't you glad she's come home?" Mrs. Caryll stroked his head. "Yes, dear," she said. "Of course I'm glad, _very_ glad. But it wasn't good of her to frighten us all so, and I must make her understand that." "_Of course_," said Maudie, virtuously. "You don't understand, Hec." "But if we had all kissened Hoodie, she'd have known we were glad she had comed back," said Hec, still with a tone of being only half satisfied. A shadow crossed Mrs. Caryll's face. Was her little son's instinct right? "Shall us all go and kissen her now?" suggested Duke in a whisper to Maudie. "No, of course not," replied Magdalen. "You're too little to understand, and you're teasing poor mamma. Come with me and we'll play at something in the study till Martin comes for you. Don't be unhappy, dear mamma," she added, turning to kiss her mother. "I am sure Hoodie didn't mean to vex you, only she is so strange." That was just it--Hoodie was so strange, so self-willed, and yet babyish, so heartless, and yet so impressionable. A sharp word or tone even would make her cry, and she was sensitive to even less than that, yet seemingly quite careless of the trouble and distress she caused to others. "My good little Maudie," said Mrs. Caryll, "why should not Hoodie too be a good and understandable little girl?" she added to herself. And what were the thoughts in Hoodie's queer little brain; what were the feelings in her queer little heart, when Martin had safely tucked her into her own nice little cot, and, rather shortly, bidden her lie quite still and not disturb her brothers when they came up to bed? "I wish I had stayed with little baby's mother," she said to herself. "Nobody was glad for me to come home. They is all ugly 'sings. Nobody kissened me. If it wasn't for zat ugly man I'd go back there, I would, whatever Martin said." * * * * * "I really think sometimes that there's something wanting in her nature," said Hoodie's mother, sadly, that same evening. She had been listening to Martin's account of the meeting at the cottage, and was now telling over the whole affair in the drawing-room, for Mr. Caryll had only returned home late that evening, as he had been some way by train to meet a visitor who was coming to stay for a time at his house. This was a cousin of his wife's, a young lady named Magdalen King, who occupied the important position of Maudie's godmother. It was some years since Cousin Magdalen had seen the children, but she had so often received descriptions of them from their mother that she seemed to know them quite well. She listened with great interest to the account of Hoodie's escapade. "She must be a strange little girl," she remarked, quietly. "Yes," said Mrs. Caryll, "so strange that, as I said, I really think sometimes there is something wanting in her nature."