ss King stopped her.

"Never mind, Martin," she said. "It really doesn't matter. She will get
to know me better in a little."

But all the same, Cousin Magdalen, being, though very amiable and
sensible, only human, _did_ feel hurt by the little girl's rude repulse.
It is never pleasant to be repulsed by any one; it is, I think, to even
right-feeling people, particularly hurting to be repulsed by a _child_.
And then Magdalen had been thinking a great deal about this poor little
Hoodie that nobody seemed able to manage, and planning to herself
various little ways by which she hoped to win her confidence, and thus
perhaps be of real service to the child, and through her to her mother.

"And now," she said to herself, "she has evidently taken a prejudice to
me at first sight. What a pity! Yet," she added, as she brushed out and
arranged the long thick brown hair which Hoodie had objected to, "she is
only a baby. Perhaps she will like me better when my hair is fastened
up. I must try her again."

The other three children had stayed in their cousin's room--Martin
having flown after Hoodie, whom she was now afraid to trust for a moment
out of her sight--and while she finished dressing they chattered away in
their own fashion.

"Poor mamma's dot one headache zis morning," said Hec.

"Yes," said Duke, "papa comed to the nursley to say Hoodie wasn't to go
to be talkened to, 'cos it would make poor mamma's headache worser."

"Won't nobody talken to Hoodie zen?" said Hec.

"Don't be silly, Hec dear," said Maudie, "of course mamma mustn't talk
to her when her head's bad. Papa said to Martin that she must not let
Hoodie out of her sight, but that he couldn't have mamma bothered about
it any more, and that it would be better to drop the subject. What does
it mean to 'drop the subject,' Cousin Magdalen? I thought perhaps it
meant to put down the lowest bar on the gate at the end of the garden,
where Hoodie sometimes creeps through to the cocky field. Could it be
that?"

"No," said Magdalen, turning away so as to hide her face, "it just means
not to say any more about Hoodie's running away yesterday, because it
has troubled your mother so much."

"Of course," said Maudie. "It is all that that has given her a headache.
It is nearly always Hoodie that gives her headaches. I wonder how she
_can_."

"But, Maudie dear," said her godmother very gently, "do you think it is
quite kind of you to speak so? It is right to be sorry whe