even this
trouble may do her good; it may teach her really to try to master that
sad temper of hers."

"I had no idea she would have been so put out at Duke's playing with her
bird," Magdalen went on, "or I would not have risked it."

"But she _should_ not have been put out at it," said Mrs. Caryll. "You
have nothing whatever to reproach yourself with, dear Magdalen. Hoodie
_must_ be taught that she cannot be allowed to yield to that selfish,
jealous temper."

"I know," said Magdalen. "But how are we to teach her? that is the
difficulty--the least severity or sternness which does good to other
children, seems to rouse her very worst feelings and only to harden her.
She is not hardened now, poor little soul, she is perfectly humble. Oh,
how I do wish I could find her bird for her!"

"Don't trouble yourself so much about it, dear. You really must not,"
said Mrs. Caryll, as she bade her cousin good night.

But unfortunately those things which our friends beg us not to trouble
ourselves about are generally the very things we find it the most
impossible to put out of our minds. Magdalen could not leave off
"troubling" about poor Hoodie. She slept little, and when she did sleep
it was only to dream of the lost bird, sometimes that it was found again
in all sorts of impossible places--sometimes that Hoodie was climbing a
dreadfully high mountain, or attempting to swim across a deep river,
where Magdalen felt that she would certainly be drowned,--in search of
it. And once she dreamt that the bird flew into her room and perched at
the foot of her bed, and when she exclaimed with delight at seeing it
again it suddenly began to speak to her, and its voice sounded exactly
like Hoodie's.

"I have come to say good-bye to you, Maudie's godmother," it said.
"Nobody loves me, and I am always naughty, so I'd better go away."

And as Magdalen started up to catch the bird, or Hoodie, whichever it
was--in her dream it seemed both--she awoke.

It was bright daylight already, though only five o'clock. Outside in the
garden the sun was shining beautifully, the air, as Magdalen opened her
window, felt deliciously fresh and sweet, everything had the peaceful
untroubled look of very early morning--of a very early spring morning
especially--when the birds and the flowers and the sunshine and the
breezes have had it all to themselves, as it were, undisturbed by the
troubles and difficulties and disagreements that busy day is sure to
brin