"I hope so," said Magdalen, in the same tone; "but, Hoodie, you must promise me one thing. You must not touch the little bird while I am away. I have put it on my table in the basket and it will be quite safe there. You may go in to look at it with Maudie, but you must not touch it." "Won't it be hungry?" inquired Hoodie. "Oh no, I'll give it a little more before I go out, and then it will be all right till I come in. You promise, Hoodie?" Hoodie nodded her head. "P'omise," she repeated. Magdalen looked after her anxiously. "Poor little Hoodie," she said to herself, as she watched the neat little figure tripping out of the room. Just then the children's mother came over to her. "Magdalen, my dear child," she said, "you must not worry yourself about these children. You have been looking quite careworn all the morning, and I can't have it." "But I wanted to help you with them, so that you might have a little rest and get quite strong again, dear Beatrice," said Magdalen. "You have never been really well since your illness last winter, and Mamma and I thought I should be able to help you--and--and--" the tears came into Cousin Magdalen's pretty eyes. "Well, dear, and who could have done more to help me than you, since you have been here? I shall miss you terribly when you go, especially about Hoodie," and in spite of her wish to cheer Magdalen, Hoodie's mother gave a little sigh. "It was about Hoodie I was thinking," said Magdalen. "I was so anxious to do her good." "And don't you think you have?" Magdalen hesitated. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I have made an impression on her, and then it seems all to have gone off again. She is such a queer mixture--in some ways so old for her age, and in some ways such a baby." "Yes," said Mrs. Caryll. "It is so very difficult to know how to treat her. But she is very fond of you, Magdalen, and I am so glad to see it. We really used to think it wasn't in her to be fond of any one." "But I am sure it is in her," said Magdalen, "only--I hardly can say what I mean--if she could be made to believe that other people love _her_, that she could be of use to others--I think that would take away the sort of defiance and hardness one sees in her sometimes. It is so unlike a child. She is always imagining people don't care for her, and then she takes actual pleasure in being as naughty as she can be." "Yes," said Hoodie's mother; "there really are days when she goes out of her way to be naughty, one might say,--when it is enough for Martin to tell her to do or not to do _anything_, for her to wish to do or not to do the opposite. Still she _has_ been better lately, Magdalen, and it is all thanks to you." "Poor little Hoodie!" said her cousin, "I wonder why it should be so very difficult for her to be good. But we must get ready now, must we not, Beatrice? And _whatever_ I do I must not forget the cage, or any good I can ever hope to do Hoodie will be at an end!"