Martin's tone was slightly querulous, but Mrs. Caryll could not resent it. Martin as a rule was so good and patient with the children, and with the other three – Maudie and the boys – there was never a shadow of trouble. Even to Hoodie she was really kind, and though sometimes it did seem as if she did not take what is called "quite the right way with her," it would hardly have been fair to blame her for that, seeing that this mysterious right way in Hoodie's case, was quite as great a puzzle as the passage round the North Pole! So great a puzzle indeed that its very existence had come to be doubted, for hitherto one thing only about it was certain – no one had ever succeeded in finding it.
On the whole, mother herself managed Hoodie better than any one else, but that, I fear, is not saying much. For whenever, after a long talk and many tears, Mrs. Caryll left the nursery with a somewhat lightened heart, thinking that for some time to come at least there was going to be peace, she was almost sure to be disappointed. Generally these very times were followed by the worst outbreaks, and in despair Mrs. Caryll would leave off talks and gentle measures and simply lock the aggravating little girl into her bedroom, whence in a few hours, the fit having at last worked itself off, Hoodie would emerge, silent indeed, but so cross, so unbearably irritable, that no one in the nursery dared look at her, much less speak to her, till a night's rest had to some extent soothed her down.
It really seemed as if, as Martin said, there was nothing to do but leave her to herself, and it was with a terror of making things worse that Hoodie's mother now stood and looked at her, asking herself what would be best to do.
"Perhaps it would have been better," she said to herself, "if I had taken no notice of anything wrong," for she believed that Hoodie's intense mortification at mother's knowing of her naughtiness was what gave her more influence over her than any one else. But it was not quite the kind of influence she most cared to have – mortification, to my thinking, never does any one any good, but only fosters the evil roots from whence all these troubles spring. "If Hoodie cared about my knowing for fear of it grieving me, I would understand better how to manage her," thought Mrs. Caryll. "But if it were so she would show her sorrow in a different way. It is her pride, not her love, that is concerned."
She was right, but wrong too. Hoodie was proud, but also intensely loving. She did grieve in her own wild, unreasonable way, at distressing her mother, but most of all she grieved that she should be the cause of it. It would have made her sorry for mother to be grieved by Maudie or the boys, but still that would have been different. It was the misery of believing herself to be always the cause of the unhappiness that seemed to come back and back upon her, making the very time at which she was "sorriest," the time at which it was hardest to be good.
Hoodie's mother stood and considered. Then she crossed the room and touched her little girl on the neck. The bare white dumpling of a shoulder just "shruggled itself up" a little higher, but Hoodie gave no other sign of having felt anything.
"Hoodie," said her mother.
No reply.
"Hoodie," a little louder.
Hoodie had to look round. What a face! Red eyes, tangled hair, frowning forehead, tight shut lips. No, the good angels had not yet found their way back to Hoodie's heart – the little black dog was still curled up on her back, scowling at every one that came near.
"Hoodie," said her mother very quietly, "come with me to my room."
Hoodie did not resist. She allowed her mother to take her hand and lead her away. As the door closed after them Maudie gave a sigh of relief.
"Let's go on with our reading as long as we can," she said. "Hoodie will be worse than ever after she comes back. As soon as ever mother has gone down again and she thinks she won't hear, she'll begin again. Won't she, Martin?"
"She often is like that," said Martin, "but perhaps she'll be better to-day. Go on reading, Miss Maudie, and take no notice of her when she comes in."
In about ten minutes the door opened and Hoodie appeared. She marched in with a half-defiant air – evidently "humble-pie" had at present no attraction for her. No one took any notice of her. This did not suit Hoodie. She dragged her little chair across the room and placed it beside her sister's.
"Doin' to be dood," she announced.
"I'm glad to hear it, Miss Hoodie," said Martin.
"Doin' to be dood. Maudie, litsen," said Hoodie impatiently, giving Magdalen's chair a jerk, "doin' to be dood."
"Very well, Hoodie, only please don't pull my chair," said Maudie, in some fear and trembling.
"You're not to read, you're to litsen when I speak," said Hoodie, "and I will pull your chair, if I like. I love mother, don't love you, Maudie, ugly 'sing that you is."
Maudie did not answer. She glanced up at Martin for advice.
"Well, Miss Maudie," said Martin cheerfully, "aren't you going on with your story?"
"It's done, Martin, you forget," said Maudie.
Martin gave her a glance which Maudie understood. "Say something to take off her attention," was the interpretation of it.
"I'll look for another. Don't run away, Hec and Duke," said the elder sister quickly. "I am afraid there is nothing in this book but what we have read lots of times," she added, after turning over the leaves for a minute or two. "I wish it was somebody's birthday soon, and then we'd get some new stories."
"My birthday next," observed Hoodie, complacently.
"No, Hoodie, 'tisn't," exclaimed both the boys, "'tisn't your birthday nextest. 'Tis ours. Aren't it now, Martin? You told us."
"Yes, dears, it is yours next. In June, Miss Hoodie dear, is theirs, you know, and yours won't be till July."
Martin made the statement gingerly. She was uncommonly afraid of what she might be drawing on herself by her venturing to disagree with the small autocrat of the nursery. To her surprise Hoodie took the information philosophically, relieving her feelings only by a piece of biting satire.
"That's acos the months is wrong. When I make the months they will come 'July, June,' not 'June, July,'" she said.
Hec and Duke thought this so original that they began laughing. A doubtful expression crept over Hoodie's face. Should she resent it, or laugh with them? Martin took the bull by the horns.
"Shall I tell you a story, my dears?" she said, "of what I once did on one of my birthdays when I was little? It came into my mind the other day, and I wonder I never told it you before, for it's something like the story of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' that Miss Hoodie got her name from."
"No, no, Martin. Hoodie didn't get her name from that," said Maudie eagerly. "It was this way. Mother got her a little hood like Red Riding Hood's in our picture – only it was pink and not scarlet, and Hoodie liked it so, she screamed when they took it off, and once she was ill and she screamed so for it that they had to put it on her even in bed, and she had it on three days running."
"Zee days zunning," repeated Hoodie, nodding her head with great satisfaction. She was evidently very proud of this legend of her infancy.
"Dear me!" said Martin, "that was a funny fancy, to be sure. But the hood wouldn't be so pretty after that."
"No, of course," said Maudie. "It was all crumpled up and spoilt. And mamma got her a new one, but Hoodie wouldn't have it on, and so after that she didn't have hoods any more, only she was always called Hoodie."
"Always called Hoodie," reiterated the heroine of this remarkable anecdote, quite restored to good humour by finding herself looked upon as a historical character.
"And now, Martin, what did you do on your birthday?" said Magdalen.
"It was when I was eight," said Martin. "We lived in the country and we had a nice little farm. My father managed the farm and my mother had the dairy. And my old grandmother lived about three miles off in a little cottage near a wood – that was one thing that made me say it was like Red Riding Hood. I was very