Magdalen quietly unfastened the door, which was bolted high up, out of the children's reach, and led the way out into the shrubbery. The rain had left off, but it had warmed rather than chilled the spring morning air, and a delicious scent of freshened earth met the little party as they came out of the billiard-room. Magdalen would have liked to stand still for a moment and look about her, and enjoy the sweet air, and listen to the pretty soft garden sounds--the crisp crunch of the heavy roller which the men were drawing over the damp gravel of the drive, the voices, further off, of the school children running home, for it was twelve o'clock,--prettier still, the faint cackles from the poultry-yard, and the twitterings, gradually waking up, of the birds, whose spirits had been depressed by the heavy rain--but where _Hoodie_ was, such lingerings by the way must never be thought of! The child darted out the moment the door was opened, and rushed across the grass-plot just in front--heedless of the soaking to which this exposed her feet and legs up to her knees, for the grass hereabouts was allowed to grow wild, and in the corners near the wall was mixed with coarse ferns and bracken, through all of which Hoodie determinedly ploughed her way. "Oh dear," exclaimed poor Magdalen, "how _silly_ I was to open the door! Just look at Hoodie, Maudie. She will be perfectly drenched. Martin really will have reason to think I am not fit to take care of you." "And she has her _best_ house shoes on," said Maudie, lugubriously. "Martin put them on when she made us neat to come down to you, Cousin Magdalen, because one of her common ones wanted stitching up at the side, and Martin always says mirocco shoes never _are_ the same again after they get soaked." "I must go after her, at all costs," said Magdalen, lifting up her long skirts as well as she could to prevent their getting any _more_ than their share of drenching. "Now, Duke and Hec, stay where you are, whatever you do, or better still, go back into the billiard-room. I trust you, Maudie, to take care of them. I am afraid their feet are wet already." "Yes, and Hec gets croup when his feet are wet," replied Maudie, consolingly. "Never mind though, Cousin Magdalen. I'll take him in, and take off his shoes and stockings by the fire and dry them." "Thank you, dear," said Magdalen, at the bottom of her heart, though she would not have said so to the children, considerably relieved that Martin need not be summoned to the rescue. "She would really feel that I could not be trusted with them, and it would be such a pity, just when I wanted so much to be of use and to help Beatrice." (Beatrice was the name of the children's mother.)