Maudie stopped for a moment. It had turned out quite a long story, and she was a little tired.
"And what did she do then? Quick, Maudie," said Hoodie.
"What did her do? Kick, kick, Maudie," said the little boys.
"Hush, children, don"t hurry Maudie so. Let her rest a minute," said Cousin Magdalen; "she must be a little tired with speaking so long."
"No, I"m not tired now," said Maudie, "only I want to remember to tell it quite right, and I couldn"t quite remember what came next. Any way, she couldn"t do anything more that day. But she wrapped up the money again quite safe, and put it in another paper, outside the one it had, and--oh, yes, that was it, she settled that she would wait till the next Sunday, and then stand at the door of the breakfast place to see the lady again. She didn"t like telling any more people for fear they might take the money away from her, or something like that, and she couldn"t think of anything better to do. Well, the next Sunday morning she took the bread as usual, and then she waited at the door for the lady to come, but she never came. Lizzie waited and waited, but she never came, and all the people had gone in and the breakfast was nearly done, but the lady never came. And at last she went and asked somebody if the lady wasn"t coming--the woman who poured out the coffee, I think it was--and she told her no, the lady wasn"t coming that day, and wouldn"t come again for a great long while, because she was going away somewhere a good way off. Lizzie was so sorry, she began to cry, so the woman asked her what was the matter, and she told her, and the woman was so pleased with her for being so honest, that she gave her the lady"s address and told her to go at once to the house, for perhaps she wouldn"t have gone yet. But it was only another disappointment, for when poor Lizzie got there she found it was all shut up; they had gone away the day before."
"Poor Lizzie," said Magdalen, "what did she do then?"
"Poor Lizzie," said Hec and Duke, "and didn"t she never get the real pennies?"
"It wasn"t pennies she wanted so much," said Hoodie, "she wanted the lady to know how good she was."
"She wanted to _be_ good, don"t you think that would be a nicer way to say it, Hoodie?" said Cousin Magdalen. "You see, being so poor, it must sometimes have been very difficult for her not to use any of the money."
"Yes," said Maudie, "it said that in the story. Well, any way she _was_ good. She sewed the money up in a little bag and put it in a safe place, and tried not to think about it. And all that winter she kept it and never touched it, though they were very poor that winter. It was so very cold, and poor people are always poorer in very cold winters, Martin says. Often they had no fire, and Lizzie"s chilblains were dreadful, for her boots didn"t keep out the rain and snow a bit, and often she was very hungry too, but still she never touched the money. And at last, after a very long time, the winter began to go away and the spring began to come, and the woman who poured out the coffee told Lizzie she had heard that the lady was coming home in the spring. So Lizzie began to wait a little every Sunday morning when she had given in the bread, to see if perhaps the lady would come. She waited like that for about six Sundays, I think, till at last one Sunday just as she was thinking it was no use waiting any more, the lady wouldn"t be coming, a carriage drove up to the door, the very same carriage that Lizzie had seen come there before, and--and--the lady--the real same lady, and the real same little boy, got out! And Lizzie was so pleased she didn"t know what to do, for though she had only seen them once before, she had watched for them so long that they seemed like great friends to her. But though she was so pleased, she began all to tremble and at first she couldn"t speak, her voice went all away. She just pulled the lady"s dress and looked up in her face but she couldn"t speak. At first the lady didn"t understand, though she was a kind lady she didn"t like a dirty-looking little girl pulling her dress, and she looked at her a little sharply.
But the little boy understood, and he called out--
""Oh, mamma, mamma, it"s the same little girl. Don"t you remember? I wonder if she"s been waiting here ever since."
"_That_ was rather silly of him; of course she couldn"t have been there ever since, but he was quite a little boy. And then the lady looked kindly at Lizzie and Lizzie"s voice came back, and she said--
""Oh, ma"am, this is the money you gave me by mistake. I"ve kept it all this time," and she put the little packet into the lady"s hand. And then something came over her; the feeling of having waited so long, I suppose, and she burst into tears. And what _do_ you think the lady did?
She was so sorry for poor Lizzie, and so pleased with her, that she actually kissed her!"
"Aczhally _kissed_ her," repeated Hoodie, Hec, and Duke. "That dirty girl!"
"No," said Maudie, "she wasn"t dirty. She was poor, but she wasn"t dirty."
"You said she was once," said Hoodie.
"Well, I didn"t mean dirty, really. I meant she looked so, because her clothes were so old. And any way the lady did kiss her, and then she was so kind. She had never thought of having given Lizzie the money. It was some she had put up to pay a bill with, and she had meant to put it in her other purse, and when she couldn"t find it, she thought she had lost it somehow. And though she was sorry, of course it didn"t matter so very much. And she said if she had known she would have written a letter to the coffee woman to tell her to spend it for warm clothes for poor Lizzie. But after all, it all turned out nice. The lady was very kind to Lizzie after that, and paid for her going to school and being taught all nice things, so that when she got a little bigger she was a very nice servant. I think it said in the story that she learnt to be a nurse, and she was a very kind nurse always."
"Like Martin?" said Duke.
"Yes," said Maudie.
"Perhaps she was even kinder than Martin," suggested Hec. "Perhaps she was _awful_ kind."
"n.o.body could be kinder than Martin, except when we"re naughty," said Duke, reproachfully.
"Don"t you think we should all thank Maudie for telling us such a nice story?" said Magdalen. "_I_ thank her very much."
"So do I," said Duke.
"And me," said Hec.
"And me," said Hoodie, "only I want to tell a story too."
"We"re all ready to listen," said Miss King. "But it mustn"t be _very_ long. I"ve to go out with your mother this afternoon, so I must write some letters before luncheon. And Hec and Duke have stories to tell, too, haven"t they? So fire away, Hoodie."
CHAPTER VIII.
HOODIE"S FOUNDLING.
"I almost think a robin To a fairy I prefer."
Hoodie gazed round her condescendingly.
"I"ve such lots of stories in my head," she said. "They knock against each other. Well--I think I"ll tell you a story of two little goblins.
They lived in a star, and they were just e"zackly like each other. As like as two pins, or as like as a pin is to itself if you look at it in the looking-gla.s.s. They lived all alone in the star, and all day they stayed asleep like we do all night, but all night they were awake like we are all day, "cos you see all day the star was shut up--like a shop, you know, only with curtains all round--all the stars are shut up like that all day, you know, and at night the moon wakes up and sends round to draw the curtains, and all the stars come out, rubbing their eyes."
"They hasn"t any hands--how can they rub their eyes?" objected Duke.
"You silly boy," said Hoodie, very sharply. "How do _you_ know? You"ve never been in the stars."
"But you hasn"t neither," he persisted.
"Never mind. I know, and if I didn"t I couldn"t tell you. That"s how people can tell stories. Well, the stars come out, lots and lots of them, and go running about all night, and then in the morning the moon sends round to draw all the curtains again and they"re all to go to sleep."
"But some nights the moon isn"t there and the stars are there without her. How is that, Hoodie?" said Cousin Magdalen, rather mischievously.
"You think so "cos you don"t know; but I do," said Hoodie, nodding her head sagaciously. "The moon"s _alvays_ there, only sometimes she has a cold, and then she wraps up her white face in a shawl and you can"t see her."
There was a twinkle of fun in Hoodie"s green eyes as she said this that showed her cousin that her little teasing was understood.
"Oh, indeed," she said, gravely, "I did _not_ know. Thank you, Hoodie, for explaining to me."
"And so," continued Hoodie, "the goblins never saw anything of day things, but they saw very funny things at night when they went sailing about on the star."
"Stars don"t go sailing about," objected Maudie. "They"re always quite still."
"They"re _not_ then," said Hoodie: "that shows you don"t listen, Maudie.
I heard Papa say one day that the stars are going as fast as fast, only they go _so_ fast that we can"t see them."
"What nonsense! Isn"t it nonsense, Cousin Magdalen?" pleaded Maudie.
"No," said Miss King. "It is true they are moving faster than we can even fancy, but the reason we can"t see them moving isn"t _exactly_ what Hoodie says."
"What is it then?"
"I can"t explain it to you just now--it would not be very easy for you to understand, and if I explained it, it would take too much time and we shouldn"t hear the rest of Hoodie"s story. I think we should let poor Hoodie go on with her story now without interrupting her any more."