"But some nights the moon isn't there and the stars are there without her. How is that, Hoodie?" said Cousin Magdalen, rather mischievously. "You think so 'cos you don't know; but I do," said Hoodie, nodding her head sagaciously. "The moon's _alvays_ there, only sometimes she has a cold, and then she wraps up her white face in a shawl and you can't see her." There was a twinkle of fun in Hoodie's green eyes as she said this that showed her cousin that her little teasing was understood. "Oh, indeed," she said, gravely, "I did _not_ know. Thank you, Hoodie, for explaining to me." "And so," continued Hoodie, "the goblins never saw anything of day things, but they saw very funny things at night when they went sailing about on the star." "Stars don't go sailing about," objected Maudie. "They're always quite still." "They're _not_ then," said Hoodie: "that shows you don't listen, Maudie. I heard Papa say one day that the stars are going as fast as fast, only they go _so_ fast that we can't see them." "What nonsense! Isn't it nonsense, Cousin Magdalen?" pleaded Maudie. "No," said Miss King. "It is true they are moving faster than we can even fancy, but the reason we can't see them moving isn't _exactly_ what Hoodie says." "What is it then?" "I can't explain it to you just now--it would not be very easy for you to understand, and if I explained it, it would take too much time and we shouldn't hear the rest of Hoodie's story. I think we should let poor Hoodie go on with her story now without interrupting her any more." Hoodie required no further bidding. "Well," she said, "all night long the goblins went sailing about in the star, and sometimes they saw very funny things. They were up so high that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the _awful_ big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum the thunder down." "Could they----?" began Duke, timidly, and then he stopped. "Could they what?" said Hoodie, rather snappishly. "If peoples interrumpt, I wish they'd finish their interrumpting, and not stop in the middle." [Illustration: "If peoples interrumpt, I wish they'd finish their interrumpting, and not stop in the middle."] "I didn't like to say it," said Duke. "I only wanted to know if they could see right into the middle of the sky where the angels are."