TWO TRUES.

"The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
The fair moon is the shepherdess."

NURSERY SONG.

A few mornings after the story telling in the garden, as Miss King was
passing along the passage on her way down to breakfast, she overheard
tumultuous sounds from the direction of the nursery. She stopped to
listen. Various little voices were to be distinguished raised much
higher than their wont, and among them, now and then, Martin's rather
anxious tones as if entreating the children to listen to her advice.

"I don't care," were among the first words Cousin Magdalen made out
clearly, "there isn't two trues, and what I'm telling is real true
_true_, as true as true."

The speaker was Hoodie. Then came the answer from Maudie.

"Hoodie, how _can_ you?" she said in a voice of real distress. "I think
it's dreadful to tell stories, and to keep on saying they're true when
you know they're not. It wouldn't have mattered if you had explained it
was a sort of fairy story like what Cousin Magdalen told us the other
day, for of course that wasn't true either, only in a way it was."

"And Hoodie didn't usplain a bit, not one bit," said Duke virtuously.
"Her keeped on saying it were as true as true."

"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