"And we is too little to under'tand, isn't we?" put in Hec. "If Hoodie had toldened us she was in fun----" "But I _wasn't_ in fun, you ugly, naughty, _ugly_ boy," retorted Hoodie, by this time most evidently losing her temper. "And if peoples 'zinks so much about trues, they shouldn't vant me to say what isn't true about being in fun when I wasn't in fun. The moon _does_----" A choky sound was now heard, caused by Maudie's putting her hand over her sister's mouth. "Hoodie, you're _not_ to say that again," she exclaimed, no doubt with the best intention, but with an unfortunate result. Hoodie turned upon her like a little wild cat, and was in the act of slapping her vigorously when Miss King hurried into the room. "_Hoodie!_" she said reproachfully. Hoodie looked up with a mixture of shame and defiance. "Oh, Hoodie, I am _so_ sorry. I thought you had quite left off everything like that," said her cousin. One or two big tears crept slowly out of the corners of Hoodie's eyes. "They shouldn't say I was telling untrue things," she muttered. "'Tisn't my fault." "Oh! Miss Hoodie," said Martin, injudiciously, "how _can_ you say so? I'm sure, Miss," she went on, turning to Magdalen, "no one said a word to put her out. She was telling fairy stories like, to Master Duke and Master Hec, and they began asking her to explain and she would say it was quite true, not fairy stories at all. And Miss Maudie just tried to show her she shouldn't say that, and then you see, Miss, she flew into a temper." "What were the stories about, Hoodie?" inquired Miss King, kindly. Hoodie vouchsafed not a word in reply. Magdalen glanced at the others. "_I'll_ tell," said Duke. "They was about things up in the sky, you know." "Angels, do you mean?" said Miss King. "Oh no, not angels," said Maudie. "It was about the stars and the moon. Hoodie has a fancy----" "It _isn't_ a fancy," put in Hoodie fiercely. "Hoodie says," continued Maudie calmly, "that the moon and the stars and all of the things up in the sky, know each other, and talk to each other, and that she has heard them. The moon takes care of the stars, she says, and early in the morning when it is time for them all to go away the moon calls to them. I mean Hoodie says she does." "'Cos she _does_," replied Hoodie, before any one else had time to speak. "She calls to them and they all come round her together, and then they all go away like a flash--_so_ quick, and it is so bright." Her funny eyes gleamed up into Magdalen's face. In the interest of what she was telling she forgot her temper. "Was it that that you saw?" asked Magdalen, gravely. "The flash of their going, I mean?" "Yes," said Hoodie, "I've seen it lots of times, and I try to keep awake on purpose. It passes--the flash, I mean--it passes by the little window near my head. The little window for seeing up into the sky, you know." Magdalen nodded her head.