"Give him to me, Lucy," said Hoodie. "Let me hold him in my own hands. Oh, birdie dear, oh, birdie darling, don't you know me?" for birdie lay still and limp--almost as if dead already. Hoodie, forcing back the tears, whistled her usual call to him, and as its sound reached his ears, birdie seemed to quiver, raised his head, feebly flapped his wings, and tried, with a piteous attempt at shaking off the sleep from which he would never again awake, tried to rouse himself and to struggle to his feet. "Oh, Lucy," cried Hoodie, "he's getting better," but as she said the words, birdie fell over on his side, uttered the feeblest of chirps, and with a little quiver lay still--quite still--he was dead. The fright had killed him. Hoodie looked up in Lucy's face with tearless eyes. "Is he dead?" she said. "Yes, Miss Hoodie dear," said Lucy, softly stroking the ruffled feathers, "he is dead, but oh dear, Miss Hoodie, it isn't so bad as if the cat had torn and scratched him all over. You should think of that." But Hoodie could think of nothing in the shape of comfort. She held the little dead bird out to Lucy. "Take him and bury him," she said. "He can't love me any more, so take him away. All the loving's dead. He was the only thing that loved me. I won't try to be good any more. God is very unkind." "Miss Hoodie!" exclaimed Lucy, considerably shocked. But Hoodie just looked at her with a hard set expression in her white face. "You don't understand," she said. "Take him away and bury him." She turned to the door and left the room. She went slowly back to her own room, and got into her little bed again. Then, like the old Hebrew king, poor little English Hoodie "turned her face to the wall," and wept and wept as if never again there could be for her brightness in the sunshine, or love and happiness in life. "My bird, my bird," she moaned. That was all she could say. She refused at first to get up and be dressed. Then, with an idea perhaps that if she did so she would be more independent than if staying in bed, with papa and mamma and Martin and everybody coming to talk to her, and try to comfort her, she slowly got out of bed and let Martin dress her. But when it came to saying her prayers, she altogether refused to do so, and on this point there was no getting her to give in. She did not refuse to eat her breakfast, because she had sense enough to know that sooner or later she would be obliged to eat, but the moment it was swallowed, she took her little chair and seated herself in the corner of the nursery, her face to the wall, crying, crying steadily, and hopelessly, turning like a little fury upon any one who ventured to speak to her, only moaning out from time to time-- "My bird, oh my bird!"