Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.“There are Rules, you see, Mary.”There was a red glow in the sky where the sun had disappeared, as Mary and her godmother came out from the shade of the trees, and stood for a moment or two on the lawn at the side of the house, before going indoors. I think one is often inclined to do this in the country, especially when it is no longer summer, and the evenings are less warm and mild—it is a sort of “good-night” to the outside world before you have to close the doors and windows of your own nest, hoping that all the furred and feathered friends are snug and cosy in theirs.“It will be fine to-morrow, I feel pretty sure,” said Miss Verity, “and perhaps milder. I hope so, for my own sake as well as yours, Mary, for I have to drive rather a long way. Now run upstairs and take off your things quickly, for tea will be quite ready, I am sure.”Mary was down again in a minute: she was not tempted to linger at her window, as she knew the Cooies would not come there till the morning. She only thought to herself that she would be very glad if Miss Verity proposed her staying at home the next day, while she herself went the long drive she had spoken of.“I could be in the forest all the afternoon,” she thought.And that evening, just before she went to bed, it seemed as if her wish had found its way into her godmother’s mind.“Would you like to go with me to Metherley—the place I have to drive to,” she said, “or would you rather stay at home and amuse yourself? Do you think you could do so? Tell me truly.”“I’msureI could,” said Mary. Then, fearing that her wish to be left behind might not sound very polite, she added, “I don’t mean that I would not like the drive with you, godmother, but I know I should be quite happy if I might go into the forest.”“There is no reason why you should not do so, dear, if it is a fairly good, dry day—and in the forest it dries so quickly; the moisture soaks through the ‘fir needles’ carpet almost at once. And I will tell Pleasance to ring the big bell now and then, so that if you should possibly feel at a loss as to your whereabouts, you would soon know.”“Oh thank you,” said Mary, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, “that would be beautiful I might fix with Pleasance to ring it twice, perhaps—once at three o’clock, and once at four. Wouldn’t that be a good plan?”“A very good plan,” said Miss Verity. “And you will promise to come home after you hear the second bell, for it will be getting late and chilly. I shall be back by half-past four or so and quite ready for tea.”“Yes,” said Mary. “I’ll run home when I hear the four o’clock bell. It will be like Cinderella.” Then came bed-time, and Mary was glad to go to sleep “for the morning to come sooner.”And when it did come, she jumped out of bed the instant Pleasance awoke her, and hurried to get dressed as quickly as possible, so that she might have a few minutes at the window with her faithful little friends.They were true to their promise. Mary had scarcely pushed up the sash when she heard their voices, and in another moment they had both hopped on to the sill.“Coo-coo,” they began, “good-morning, Mary dear. We have been watching for you.”“Good-morning, dear Cooies,” she said. “I have only a very few minutes before the breakfast-bell rings, but this afternoon—”“We know,” interrupted Mr Coo. “You are to be alone, and you have got leave to be in the forest.”“Howdoyou know?” said Mary, opening her eyes very wide.Mr Coo shook his head; Mrs Coo held hers on one side.“Never mind how we know,” said Mr Coo. “To begin with, we are ‘little birds’—”“Not so very little,” Mary interrupted.”—And,” Mr Coo continued, without noticing what Mary said, “everybody knows that little birds hear more than any one else. Besides, we are such near neighbours.”“Oh,” exclaimed Mary, “that was what I wanted so much to ask you. Do you live in that dark place in the forest? I mean do you roost there?”Both the wood-pigeons put their heads on one side and looked at her—“rather funnily,” Mary thought to herself, afterwards.“We roost close to your garden,” said Mr Coo. “What you call the dark place in the forest is not what you think it.”Mary listened eagerly.“Do tell me about it,” she said.“There is not time just now,” Mrs Coo replied. “Besides—” and she glanced at Mr Coo.“We hope to do much better than tell you about it,” he said. “We mean toshowit to you—that is what we want to settle about. You must meet us in the forest as soon as you go out this afternoon.”“Yes,” said Mary. She was beginning to find out that the best way with the Cooies was to agree with their plans and never to argue with them. For sooner or later, somehow or other, they carried out what they settled, and as she was by no means sure that they were not half or three-quarters “fairies,” she did not mind giving in to them, little birds though they were.So “yes,” she said, “I have got leave to go into the forest immediately after luncheon, and if you will tell me where to meet you—”“You need do nothing but walk straight on through the gate from this garden,” said Mr Coo. “We shall manage all the rest. It is not going to rain, you need not be afraid,” he added, seeing that Mary was glancing up rather anxiously at the sky.“I’m so glad,” she replied, with a sigh of relief, and just then the breakfast-bell rang.“Good-bye, dear Cooies, good-bye till this afternoon,” she exclaimed as she ran off, and the soft coo-coo sounded in her ears on her way downstairs.“Dear me,” said Myrtle to Pleasance, as they met on the landing, “just hearken to those wood-pigeons. They might be living in the house. I never, no never, have known them come about so, as just lately. They seem as if they knew Miss Mary was here, and were particular friends of hers,” and the old servant laughed at her own joke.The morning passed as usual. Mary did her best to give her attention to her lessons, which as a rule she found no difficulty in doing, for her godmother’s pleasant teaching was so interesting and often indeed so amusing that it did not seem like lessons at all. But this morning her head was running so much on what her Cooies had said and promised, that more than once Miss Verity had to ask her what she was thinking about.“Is it your afternoon in the forest that you are dreaming of?” said her godmother. “Are you intending to explore it and make wonderful discoveries?”Mary grew rather pink.“Godmother,” she replied, “you have such a way of guessing what I am thinking about! I never knew any one like you for that.”Miss Verity smiled.“You need not mind,” she said. “I have not forgotten about my own dreams and fancies when I was a little girl like you. Perhaps they were not altogether dreams and fancies, after all. However that may have been, they did me no harm, and I don’t think yours will do you any harm either.”“Were some of them about the forest?” asked Mary, rather shyly.Miss Verity nodded.“Yes,” she replied, “I think they nearly all had to do with the forest. You know—or perhaps you don’t know—that this was my own old home, long, long ago, when I was a very little girl. Then, when I was nearly grown-up, we left it, and I did not see it again for many years. But it always seemed ‘home’ to me, and you can imagine my delight when I heard it was again to be sold and I was able to buy it for my very own. And I hope to end my days here, at the edge of the dear forest I love so well.”Mary listened with great interest. She thought to herself that she would soon get to feel just as her godmother did about Dove’s Nest.“Especially,” she added in her own mind, “as the forest is the Cooies’ home.”“Now, let me hear you go over that page of French again,” said Miss Verity. “You will enjoy your afternoon all the more if you have done your best this morning.”As she said this, a low “coo-coo” caught Mary’s ear. It was soft and faint—perhaps it came from some little distance—perhaps it was very low on purpose, so that no one but herself should hear it. But she knew whose voice it was; she knew too what the Cooies’ advice would be, so, though it called for some effort on her part, she determined to leave off thinking of anything but the matter in hand, and gave her full attention to her French reading. And by the end of her lesson time she felt well rewarded when her godmother told her she had done “very well indeed.”The day had grown steadily brighter. When luncheon was over, Miss Verity went upstairs almost immediately to put on her out-door things, and Mary waited in the porch to watch for the ponies coming round and to see her godmother start.Jackdaw and Magpie seemed very bright and eager to be off, and they looked so pretty that for a moment or two Mary half regretted that she had asked to be left behind. But just as she was thinking this, she heard again the voice from the trees, “coo-coo,” and she looked up with a smile.“Oh my dear Cooies,” she said, “you are gettingtooclever! I believe you know what I am thinking even—but you need not remind me of our plans, and you needn’t be afraid that Ireallywant to go a drive instead of staying with you.”Then she heard her godmother coming downstairs, and as Miss Verity got into the pony-carriage she nodded brightly to Mary.“Good-bye, dear,” she said. “Be sure you enjoy yourself, but don’t forget to run home when you hear the bell for the second time.”Mary nodded. “I won’t forget,” she said.Then the ponies tossed their heads, as if to say good-bye, and started off briskly, their bells tinkling clearly at first, then more and more faintly as they trotted away, till at last they were not to be heard at all.Mary gave herself a little shake. She had been standing listening in a half dreamy way. Now she ran across the lawn and through the wicket-gate and into the wood as quickly as she could go. But once she was well among the trees she walked more slowly; somehow she never felt inclined to run very fast in the forest or to talk loudly. There was something soft and soothing in the air, in the gentle rustle high up among the branches and the uncertain light, a feeling of “mystery,” to put it shortly.“I wonder,” said the little girl to herself, “I wonder if it all looked just as it does now when godmother was like me and strolled about the paths. I wonder if it will look just the same when I get to be quite old, as old as dear godmother is now. I wonder if it will look the same—let me see—a hundred years from now.”“It will not take a hundred years for you to be an old woman,” said a voice close to her ear.Mary gave a little start. Then, glancing up, she saw the two wood-pigeons perched on a low-growing branch just where she was passing. They had not been there a moment or two before, she was certain, and she felt a little vexed with them—with Mr Coo, at least, for she now knew their voices well enough to distinguish that it was he who had spoken to her—for startling her.“Of course it won’t,” she replied rather crossly. “I am not so silly as all that. I shall be quite old in fifty years, or less than that I wasn’t thinking of godmother’s age when I wondered about a hundred years from now, nor about myself either, and if you please, Cooies, when you guess what I am thinking in my own mind, please guess the whole, and not odd bits.”“All right,” said Mr Coo.“No,” said Mary, “I think it’s all wrong when you get into that teasing way.”“He doesn’t mean it, my dear,” said Mrs Coo, who was always a peacemaker, “but perhaps you are tired to-day. Would you rather not—”“Oh,” interrupted Mary, “if you are going to say would I rather not go to see that secret part of the forest, please don’t say it. Of course I’m not tired or anything. I’ve just beenlongingto come.”“Well then,” said Mr Coo, “listen, Mary, and I will tell you exactly what to do. Walk straight on till you come to the place where you stood still with your godmother yesterday and looked at the dark part among the trees. Then glance about you on the left, and after a little you will perceive lying on the ground a small grey feather. Note well the spot where it lies, then pick it up and fasten it on to your cap in the front.”“My cap,” exclaimed Mary, putting up her hand to her head, “my hat, you mean—oh no, by the bye, I have my little fur cap on. How quickly you notice everything, dear Cooie! I remember thinking that my cap would be more comfortable for getting in and out among the bushes.”The Cooies did not answer, but Mary felt sure that both their heads were well on one side, which she had found out for them meant a kind of smile, and when she glanced at them she saw that it was so.“Well then,” she went on, “I beg your pardon for interrupting you—after I have stuck the grey feather in my cap?”“Walk on seven paces from the exact spot—right foot one—left foot two—exactlyseven, you understand. Then stand still and you will see a very small opening in the brushwood and bushes, by this time very thick and close, you know. It will seem almost too small an opening for you to push into, but don’t be afraid. You shall neither scratch your face nor tear your clothes, I promise you. The only thing you may dislike will be that for a little way it may be very dark—darker the farther you go, till—”Mary felt a tiny bit frightened, and this made her interrupt again—“I wouldn’t mind if you were with me,” she exclaimed. “Why can’t you stay with me now? You might perch on my shoulders, both of you—or I will carry you very carefully if you like.”“No,” said both the wood-pigeons together, so that their voices sounded like one, “that would not do. There are rules, you see, Mary. You must do part of it for yourself. Don’t be afraid—the darkness won’t hurt you, and after a bit you will get out of it, and then—”“Then, what?”“You will seeus, and—a good deal more,” was the reply, followed by a slight flutter, and when Mary looked up, both her friends had disappeared!

There was a red glow in the sky where the sun had disappeared, as Mary and her godmother came out from the shade of the trees, and stood for a moment or two on the lawn at the side of the house, before going indoors. I think one is often inclined to do this in the country, especially when it is no longer summer, and the evenings are less warm and mild—it is a sort of “good-night” to the outside world before you have to close the doors and windows of your own nest, hoping that all the furred and feathered friends are snug and cosy in theirs.

“It will be fine to-morrow, I feel pretty sure,” said Miss Verity, “and perhaps milder. I hope so, for my own sake as well as yours, Mary, for I have to drive rather a long way. Now run upstairs and take off your things quickly, for tea will be quite ready, I am sure.”

Mary was down again in a minute: she was not tempted to linger at her window, as she knew the Cooies would not come there till the morning. She only thought to herself that she would be very glad if Miss Verity proposed her staying at home the next day, while she herself went the long drive she had spoken of.

“I could be in the forest all the afternoon,” she thought.

And that evening, just before she went to bed, it seemed as if her wish had found its way into her godmother’s mind.

“Would you like to go with me to Metherley—the place I have to drive to,” she said, “or would you rather stay at home and amuse yourself? Do you think you could do so? Tell me truly.”

“I’msureI could,” said Mary. Then, fearing that her wish to be left behind might not sound very polite, she added, “I don’t mean that I would not like the drive with you, godmother, but I know I should be quite happy if I might go into the forest.”

“There is no reason why you should not do so, dear, if it is a fairly good, dry day—and in the forest it dries so quickly; the moisture soaks through the ‘fir needles’ carpet almost at once. And I will tell Pleasance to ring the big bell now and then, so that if you should possibly feel at a loss as to your whereabouts, you would soon know.”

“Oh thank you,” said Mary, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, “that would be beautiful I might fix with Pleasance to ring it twice, perhaps—once at three o’clock, and once at four. Wouldn’t that be a good plan?”

“A very good plan,” said Miss Verity. “And you will promise to come home after you hear the second bell, for it will be getting late and chilly. I shall be back by half-past four or so and quite ready for tea.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “I’ll run home when I hear the four o’clock bell. It will be like Cinderella.” Then came bed-time, and Mary was glad to go to sleep “for the morning to come sooner.”

And when it did come, she jumped out of bed the instant Pleasance awoke her, and hurried to get dressed as quickly as possible, so that she might have a few minutes at the window with her faithful little friends.

They were true to their promise. Mary had scarcely pushed up the sash when she heard their voices, and in another moment they had both hopped on to the sill.

“Coo-coo,” they began, “good-morning, Mary dear. We have been watching for you.”

“Good-morning, dear Cooies,” she said. “I have only a very few minutes before the breakfast-bell rings, but this afternoon—”

“We know,” interrupted Mr Coo. “You are to be alone, and you have got leave to be in the forest.”

“Howdoyou know?” said Mary, opening her eyes very wide.

Mr Coo shook his head; Mrs Coo held hers on one side.

“Never mind how we know,” said Mr Coo. “To begin with, we are ‘little birds’—”

“Not so very little,” Mary interrupted.

”—And,” Mr Coo continued, without noticing what Mary said, “everybody knows that little birds hear more than any one else. Besides, we are such near neighbours.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Mary, “that was what I wanted so much to ask you. Do you live in that dark place in the forest? I mean do you roost there?”

Both the wood-pigeons put their heads on one side and looked at her—“rather funnily,” Mary thought to herself, afterwards.

“We roost close to your garden,” said Mr Coo. “What you call the dark place in the forest is not what you think it.”

Mary listened eagerly.

“Do tell me about it,” she said.

“There is not time just now,” Mrs Coo replied. “Besides—” and she glanced at Mr Coo.

“We hope to do much better than tell you about it,” he said. “We mean toshowit to you—that is what we want to settle about. You must meet us in the forest as soon as you go out this afternoon.”

“Yes,” said Mary. She was beginning to find out that the best way with the Cooies was to agree with their plans and never to argue with them. For sooner or later, somehow or other, they carried out what they settled, and as she was by no means sure that they were not half or three-quarters “fairies,” she did not mind giving in to them, little birds though they were.

So “yes,” she said, “I have got leave to go into the forest immediately after luncheon, and if you will tell me where to meet you—”

“You need do nothing but walk straight on through the gate from this garden,” said Mr Coo. “We shall manage all the rest. It is not going to rain, you need not be afraid,” he added, seeing that Mary was glancing up rather anxiously at the sky.

“I’m so glad,” she replied, with a sigh of relief, and just then the breakfast-bell rang.

“Good-bye, dear Cooies, good-bye till this afternoon,” she exclaimed as she ran off, and the soft coo-coo sounded in her ears on her way downstairs.

“Dear me,” said Myrtle to Pleasance, as they met on the landing, “just hearken to those wood-pigeons. They might be living in the house. I never, no never, have known them come about so, as just lately. They seem as if they knew Miss Mary was here, and were particular friends of hers,” and the old servant laughed at her own joke.

The morning passed as usual. Mary did her best to give her attention to her lessons, which as a rule she found no difficulty in doing, for her godmother’s pleasant teaching was so interesting and often indeed so amusing that it did not seem like lessons at all. But this morning her head was running so much on what her Cooies had said and promised, that more than once Miss Verity had to ask her what she was thinking about.

“Is it your afternoon in the forest that you are dreaming of?” said her godmother. “Are you intending to explore it and make wonderful discoveries?”

Mary grew rather pink.

“Godmother,” she replied, “you have such a way of guessing what I am thinking about! I never knew any one like you for that.”

Miss Verity smiled.

“You need not mind,” she said. “I have not forgotten about my own dreams and fancies when I was a little girl like you. Perhaps they were not altogether dreams and fancies, after all. However that may have been, they did me no harm, and I don’t think yours will do you any harm either.”

“Were some of them about the forest?” asked Mary, rather shyly.

Miss Verity nodded.

“Yes,” she replied, “I think they nearly all had to do with the forest. You know—or perhaps you don’t know—that this was my own old home, long, long ago, when I was a very little girl. Then, when I was nearly grown-up, we left it, and I did not see it again for many years. But it always seemed ‘home’ to me, and you can imagine my delight when I heard it was again to be sold and I was able to buy it for my very own. And I hope to end my days here, at the edge of the dear forest I love so well.”

Mary listened with great interest. She thought to herself that she would soon get to feel just as her godmother did about Dove’s Nest.

“Especially,” she added in her own mind, “as the forest is the Cooies’ home.”

“Now, let me hear you go over that page of French again,” said Miss Verity. “You will enjoy your afternoon all the more if you have done your best this morning.”

As she said this, a low “coo-coo” caught Mary’s ear. It was soft and faint—perhaps it came from some little distance—perhaps it was very low on purpose, so that no one but herself should hear it. But she knew whose voice it was; she knew too what the Cooies’ advice would be, so, though it called for some effort on her part, she determined to leave off thinking of anything but the matter in hand, and gave her full attention to her French reading. And by the end of her lesson time she felt well rewarded when her godmother told her she had done “very well indeed.”

The day had grown steadily brighter. When luncheon was over, Miss Verity went upstairs almost immediately to put on her out-door things, and Mary waited in the porch to watch for the ponies coming round and to see her godmother start.

Jackdaw and Magpie seemed very bright and eager to be off, and they looked so pretty that for a moment or two Mary half regretted that she had asked to be left behind. But just as she was thinking this, she heard again the voice from the trees, “coo-coo,” and she looked up with a smile.

“Oh my dear Cooies,” she said, “you are gettingtooclever! I believe you know what I am thinking even—but you need not remind me of our plans, and you needn’t be afraid that Ireallywant to go a drive instead of staying with you.”

Then she heard her godmother coming downstairs, and as Miss Verity got into the pony-carriage she nodded brightly to Mary.

“Good-bye, dear,” she said. “Be sure you enjoy yourself, but don’t forget to run home when you hear the bell for the second time.”

Mary nodded. “I won’t forget,” she said.

Then the ponies tossed their heads, as if to say good-bye, and started off briskly, their bells tinkling clearly at first, then more and more faintly as they trotted away, till at last they were not to be heard at all.

Mary gave herself a little shake. She had been standing listening in a half dreamy way. Now she ran across the lawn and through the wicket-gate and into the wood as quickly as she could go. But once she was well among the trees she walked more slowly; somehow she never felt inclined to run very fast in the forest or to talk loudly. There was something soft and soothing in the air, in the gentle rustle high up among the branches and the uncertain light, a feeling of “mystery,” to put it shortly.

“I wonder,” said the little girl to herself, “I wonder if it all looked just as it does now when godmother was like me and strolled about the paths. I wonder if it will look just the same when I get to be quite old, as old as dear godmother is now. I wonder if it will look the same—let me see—a hundred years from now.”

“It will not take a hundred years for you to be an old woman,” said a voice close to her ear.

Mary gave a little start. Then, glancing up, she saw the two wood-pigeons perched on a low-growing branch just where she was passing. They had not been there a moment or two before, she was certain, and she felt a little vexed with them—with Mr Coo, at least, for she now knew their voices well enough to distinguish that it was he who had spoken to her—for startling her.

“Of course it won’t,” she replied rather crossly. “I am not so silly as all that. I shall be quite old in fifty years, or less than that I wasn’t thinking of godmother’s age when I wondered about a hundred years from now, nor about myself either, and if you please, Cooies, when you guess what I am thinking in my own mind, please guess the whole, and not odd bits.”

“All right,” said Mr Coo.

“No,” said Mary, “I think it’s all wrong when you get into that teasing way.”

“He doesn’t mean it, my dear,” said Mrs Coo, who was always a peacemaker, “but perhaps you are tired to-day. Would you rather not—”

“Oh,” interrupted Mary, “if you are going to say would I rather not go to see that secret part of the forest, please don’t say it. Of course I’m not tired or anything. I’ve just beenlongingto come.”

“Well then,” said Mr Coo, “listen, Mary, and I will tell you exactly what to do. Walk straight on till you come to the place where you stood still with your godmother yesterday and looked at the dark part among the trees. Then glance about you on the left, and after a little you will perceive lying on the ground a small grey feather. Note well the spot where it lies, then pick it up and fasten it on to your cap in the front.”

“My cap,” exclaimed Mary, putting up her hand to her head, “my hat, you mean—oh no, by the bye, I have my little fur cap on. How quickly you notice everything, dear Cooie! I remember thinking that my cap would be more comfortable for getting in and out among the bushes.”

The Cooies did not answer, but Mary felt sure that both their heads were well on one side, which she had found out for them meant a kind of smile, and when she glanced at them she saw that it was so.

“Well then,” she went on, “I beg your pardon for interrupting you—after I have stuck the grey feather in my cap?”

“Walk on seven paces from the exact spot—right foot one—left foot two—exactlyseven, you understand. Then stand still and you will see a very small opening in the brushwood and bushes, by this time very thick and close, you know. It will seem almost too small an opening for you to push into, but don’t be afraid. You shall neither scratch your face nor tear your clothes, I promise you. The only thing you may dislike will be that for a little way it may be very dark—darker the farther you go, till—”

Mary felt a tiny bit frightened, and this made her interrupt again—

“I wouldn’t mind if you were with me,” she exclaimed. “Why can’t you stay with me now? You might perch on my shoulders, both of you—or I will carry you very carefully if you like.”

“No,” said both the wood-pigeons together, so that their voices sounded like one, “that would not do. There are rules, you see, Mary. You must do part of it for yourself. Don’t be afraid—the darkness won’t hurt you, and after a bit you will get out of it, and then—”

“Then, what?”

“You will seeus, and—a good deal more,” was the reply, followed by a slight flutter, and when Mary looked up, both her friends had disappeared!

Chapter Eight.“A Little White Gate.”Mary stood still for a moment or two, gazing after them, or rather gazing at the place where they had been. She felt, as she would have said herself, “rather funny”; not frightened exactly, and certainly very curious to see what was going to happen next, but just alittletimid about making the plunge into the dark mysterious depths of the forest.But it was now or never.“If I let myself get silly and run back home, or anything like that,” she thought, “I daresay the Cooies will never care for me again, or come to see me or show me things. For I can see they are rather obstinate, and of course if they are fairies, or partly fairies, they like to be obeyed—fairies always do. And godmother too—I believe she understands about fairies much more than she says—and she always is sure no harm can come to me in the forest. So I’d better be quick and look out carefully for the little grey feather.”She walked on therefore, not too fast, for fear of passing the signal, and with her eyes fixed on the bushes on the left. But it seemed to her that she had walked a good long way, farther than she expected, before she felt satisfied that she had got to the place where Miss Verity and she had stood the day before.“Can I have passed it?” she asked herself, “and can Ipossiblyhave missed the feather, or can it have blown away?” and she stopped short, feeling a little anxious.But just then a very faint “coo” reached her ears; it was scarcely to be heard, more like the shadow of the sound, but still it was plainly in front of her, and it encouraged Mary. She had not come too far, and stepping on again, she soon recognised the spot, and—a little bit on again, and she gave a tiny cry—there, safely nestling among the branches, within reach of her hand—was the wee grey, or rather “dove-coloured” feather.“I might have known it would be all right—and of course anything fairy-ishcouldn’tblow away,” she thought.She picked up the feather, and took off her little fur cap, into which she fastened it without any difficulty, for though she had no pin—it isn’t often, is it, that little girls have pins “handy” when wanted?—it seemed to catch into the skin of the fur, all of itself.“It reminds me,” thought Mary, “of ‘Up the airy mountain—’ that part about bed jacket, green cap, and white owl’s feather—though I certainly don’t want to be stolen away, like little Bridget, for seven years long, even by the Cooies. But I can trust them.”Then she placed her foot exactly below the branch where she had found the feather and stepped forward carefully, one, two, three, four—up to seven, and then stood still again.At first she really thought for a moment or two that the wood-pigeons had been playing her a trick. The bushes and trees on both sides seemed to have got so very thick and close; she could not see the least sign of an opening for even a rabbit to get through on either the left or the right! And it felt so cold; so much colder, suddenly, it had become.“I must go home,” thought Mary, feeling ready to cry. “I believe the Cooies are imps after all, and not nice fairies. Yes, I’d better go home,” and just at that moment came the sound of the big bell, not very loud, but quite distinct Pleasance had not forgotten to ring it. “Three o’clock,” thought Mary, “I had no idea I had been so long. Yes, I must turn back.”But—what was that other sound? Again, from among the bushes on the left, came the soft, encouraging little voice, “coo-coo,”—“don’t be so distrustful, Mary; try again,” it seemed to say, and as the little girl still hesitated a sudden glimmer of light flickered for a moment through the branches somehow, down to the ground, and then faded as quickly as it had come.Mary stooped, and with her hands, well protected in their thick winter gloves, tried to push back some of the leaves. To her surprise they, or rather the branches on which they were growing, yielded to her touch in a wonderful way, as if they had been waiting to be put aside, and then she saw before her a very narrow, very dark little path,buta path, though it scarcely looked as if even a little doggie could have made its way along it! But her spirits had got up again by this time, and she pressed on bravely. It took some courage—it was like walking through the very high corn in a very fully grown corn-field, if ever you have done such a mischievous thing?—only with dark trees overhead, and no light anywhere scarcely—all gloom instead of golden, sunlight yellow. Still it could be done, and though Mary’s heart was beating very fast, she persevered.And before long she was rewarded. As the Cooies had promised, a few minutes were enough to bring her to the end of the chilly dark path, then she saw before her, close at hand, a little white gate.When I say alittlewhite gate, I do not mean a low one. On the contrary it was high, a good deal higher than the top of Mary’s head, but quite narrow, and it seemed closely barred or wired, so that she could scarcely see through it. She had not time, however, to judge as to this, for almost as soon as she came to a stop in front of it she heard a swish and rustle in the air, and down came from she knew not where a whole flight, or flights of birds, in great excitement, who settled themselves on the gate, inside and outside, so to say, as if to defend it.They did not chirp or chatter or even coo—“cooing” indeed would not have seemed to suit the state they were in, though she very quickly saw that they were all pigeons, or doves, or birds of that family, though of very varying sizes and colour, but so many, and all so plainly intending to prevent her trying to open the gate that she would have been quite afraid to try to do so. There was perfect silence, however.“They must be all the uncles and aunts and cousins and relations of the Cooies,” thought Mary. “I expect I shall have to go home, after all, without seeing the secret of the forest, as they certainly don’t seem to want to let me pass in.” She was again mistaken.Another little rustle in the air, quite a tiny one this time, and Mary felt something alight on each of her shoulders. She glanced up—yes, it was her own friends.“Coo-coo,” they whispered to her. Then one of them or both—she was often not sure if only one, or the two together, were speaking—turned to the mass of birds clinging to the gate.“How inhospitable you are!” they said. “What a welcome to a friend! Don’t you see sheisa friend? She has the Queen’s feather, and she has learnt our language,” and then Mary felt that all the pairs of eyes of all the many birds were looking at her, and scarcely knowing that she did so, she raised her hand to her head, and touched the little grey feather nestling in her cap.Instantly there came another flutter, and in the twinkling of an eye the gate was cleared. Still more, in some way which she could not see, it was opened, or opened itself, dividing, narrow though it was, in the middle, and the birds, as if by magic, arranged themselves in two long rows on each side, seeming to mark a path for her to step along, for of actual path there was none. Inside the gate there was just the very softest, shortest, greenest grass you could imagine, like lovely springy velvet or plush to walk on, and Mary stepped forward, feeling as if each time she put down her foot a sort of pleasure came through it.Just at first, she scarcely took in all the wonderful things that had happened since she passed through the white gate. The rows of birds made her feel a little shy, for she saw that all their round eyes were fixed on her. But by degrees she began to notice everything more closely.She seemed still to hear a sort of flutter and rustle that kept on steadily, and yet the birds were quite motionless—those in front of her, that is to say, but after a moment or two she turned round to see if she could find out the cause of the sounds she heard, and then she discovered that as soon as she had passed, the birds rose in couples and flew off, as if to say, “we have received her politely, and now we have other things to attend to.”On the whole Mary was rather glad of this. The numbers of birds made her, as I have said, feel rather shy and confused.“I only want my own Cooies,” she thought, “and not all their uncles and aunts and cousins,” and she glanced forward again, trying to see how many more she would have to pass, and at that moment, to her great delight, she caught sight of something she had not seen before.Right in front of her was another gate, but this time it was quite a low one, she could almost have jumped over it, she fancied, and it was not white, but green—grass green, which was perhaps the reason she had not seen it till she was quite near it. And the rows of birds stopped on this side of it, and, best of all, her Cooies flew down from her shoulders and perched themselves on the gate, which opened as the other had done, for her to pass through, the last of the stranger birds fluttering off as she did so, leaving her alone with her own two friends.“Oh, I’m so glad they’ve all gone except you two,” she said, with a little sigh of satisfaction. “What quantities of relations you have, Cooies! Do you know, they made me feel quite giddy? I shall have you all to myself now, and you can explain everything to me, and show me all over this beautiful place.”“Suppose you sit down and rest for a few minutes first,” said Mr Coo. His manners became doubly polite and kind, now that Mary was his guest. “You have walked a good way, farther than you think, and you can see a great many things you may like to ask about, from where you are.”“Where,” began Mary, “where shall I sit down?” she was going to say, but before she got further she found this was a question she did not need to ask, for just at one side of where she was standing she caught sight of the dearest and queerest arm-chair you ever saw. It was made of moss, or at least covered in moss, green and fresh, but not at all damp-looking. Nor was it so; on the contrary it was deliciously dry and springy.Mary seated herself with great satisfaction, and the Cooies settled themselves on each arm of her chair and looked at her, their heads well on one side, which she had come to know meant that they were in high good humour.Then she gazed about her.She seemed to be in a very, very large bower, all carpeted with the same lovely short grass that she had noticed on first entering, and with smaller bowers opening, like cloisters, on all sides. Up above, it was very high, so high that she could not clearly see if there was any kind of roof or ceiling, or only the interlacing branches of the great tall trees meeting overhead. These trees walled it all in very thickly, it was easy to see, and thus made the dark, almost black look which this innermost spot of the forest had when seen from the outside.But indeed everything was different from what Mary could have had any expectation of.To begin with, the air was deliciously mild and warm, though not too hot, or with the shut-in feeling of a conservatory. On the contrary, little breezes were fluttering about, bearing the sweet fresh scents of a garden in late spring or early summer. And the light?Where did it come from?Mary gazed about for a minute or two before she spoke. She felt content for a little just to sit and look, and then she was rather afraid of asking any “silly” questions, for she had found out that the Cooies were far cleverer than any one could have imagined, which she explained to her own satisfaction by deciding that they were half, if not whole, fairies!And this she felt more sure of than ever before, now that she had been led by them into this wonderful bower.But where did the light come from?It did not seem like sunshine; it was almost too soft and mellow, and yet it was certainly not moonlight, which is always cold and thin. It was more like sunshine coming through some gently tinted glass, or even silk, but it wasdifferentfrom any light that Mary could liken it to, in her own mind. So this seemed a sensible question to ask.“Cooies, dear,” she began, “I do feel so happy, and I do thank you for having brought me here to this lovely place. I really feel as if I never wanted to go away. But—it is very, very strange. My head is full of puzzles. And you did say I might ask questions?”“Certainly,” Mr Coo replied, “ask any you like, though you must understand that we cannot promise you answers to all. Or at least not the kind of answers you want, exactly.”Mary nodded her head. A feeling came over her that perhaps she would not really want answers to all, that it might spoil the nice part of the puzzles. Still, some things she did want to know.“Then, first of all,” she said, “where does the light come from? It is so beautifully clear and yet so soft I have never seen any light quite like it.”“No,” said Mr Coo. “I don’t suppose you ever have,” and Mrs Coo murmured something which sounded like, “How could she?”“And,” Mr Coo continued, “I am sorry to say that your very first question is one which it is impossible for me to answer in any way which it would be possible for you to understand. I can onlyhalfdo so, by askingyoua question. Have you never heard or read that in fairy-land, real fairy-land, no mortal among the very few who have ever found their way there could tell how it was lighted?”And as he said this, Mr Coo held his head further on one side than Mary had ever yet seen it.She gave a little jump; she almost thought she would like to clap her hands.“Oh, Cooie, dear,” she cried, “that is much nicer than any explanation! Do you really mean that—”“Sh—softly, please,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I really mean anything. It is just a tiny bit of an idea that I have got leave to put into your head.”“Leave—got leave,” Mary repeated. “Whom have you got leave from?”“This place does not all belong to us,” was the reply. “You saw by the sign of the grey feather that I had to get leave to bring you in here. And that is all I can say—at present, any way.”“But it does mean,” Mary persisted, “it must mean that this is fairy-land?”“No,” said Mr Coo, “that does not follow. You don’t need to be in the sun to feel the good of its light and warmth.”“Certainly not,” said Mary, laughing. “There wouldn’t be much left of us in the sun. We’d be frizzled up in a moment, of course, before one could say ‘tic,’ wouldn’t one?”“Most likely,” replied Mr Coo.“But still—even if this isn’t fairy-land, it might be close to it?” she went on.“Yes, it might be,” was the reply.“Well, then, mayn’t I think it is?”“It will not do you any harm to do so.”But here Mrs Coo interrupted.“Do not tease the dear child,” she said, for Mrs Coo could speak up sometimes. “I promise you you are not far wrong, very far from far wrong indeed, if you do think so.”Mary felt very pleased and quite ready to go on with her questions. She looked about her to settle what to ask next.“Please tell me,” she said, “what are all those lots and lots of little arbours opening out of this very big one, and may I run about and peep into them?”“One question at a time, if you’ve no objection,” said the pigeon on her right hand again. “The small bowers are arranged for separate families when we have our great assemblies. We do everything in a very orderly way. As for looking into them, you may certainly do so—there is a great deal for you to see here, otherwise we would not have brought you. It would not be very amusing to spend all the time in just sitting still, talking to us.”“I don’t know,” said Mary, rather lazily. “It might not be very amusing, but it is verynice. It is so lovelily warm. But I am not tired now, mayn’t I walk on?”“I am afraid that to-day,” said one of the Cooies,—which, Mary was not quite sure, as it was sometimes difficult to tell,—“I am afraid—” but just then Mary gave a great start.“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I believe that’s the bell; the four o’clock bell that Pleasance was to ring for me. I must go. It will take me a good while to get home,” and she looked rather distressed.“No, it won’t. We will show you a short-cut,” said both the Cooies together. This time she had no doubt that both were speaking. “Do not be afraid. We knew it was about time for you to go home, and we were just going to tell you so when you heard the bell. This is only a first visit, to teach you the way, as it were.”“Then may I come again very soon, and see all over, and peep into all the little arbours and everything?” asked Mary, her spirits rising again.“Of course you may. It will be all arranged, you will see,” said Mr Coo. “There are plans which we will tell you about, all in good time. But you may stay a few minutes longer. Pleasance will not expect you back the very moment she has rung for you.”And Mary was pleased to lean back in her mossy chair for a little bit.“It is the warm feeling that is so nice here,” she said presently. “Just right—neither too hot nor too cold. I don’t mind its being a little cold, now the winter is coming, of course. Out-of-doors one can run, and in the house Pleasance says my godmother is sure to give me a fire in my own room as soon as I like, so I daresay I shall be warmer even than at auntie’s house. But itisnice to have the summery feeling back again.”“Coo-coo,” the wood-pigeons replied, which meant that they quite agreed with her.“Is it always mild and warm in this funny place?” Mary went on.“Always, just as you feel it,” said Mr Coo.“How nice!” said Mary. “I don’t wonder you removed to the forest from the Square gardens. Yet you never seemed cold there. I used to watch you last spring, soon after the winter, before it had begun to get warm, you know, and wish I was dressed in feathers like you. That was before I knew you, or had learnt to talk to you. Itiscold in the nursery early in the morning sometimes, if the fire hasn’t burnt up well, and the little ones sit at the warm side of the table, you see. I shall love to come back here again,” she went on. “You’llpromiseto settle about it soon, won’t you? I do so want to see everything you can show me.”“We won’t forget,” was the reply. “But it is time for you to be going. Lean back a little more.”Mary did so, though wondering why, for she was quite getting into the way of obeying her little friends without hesitation.And to her surprise she felt that the chair, which had seemed almost as if growing out of the ground, tilted back with her, though gently, as if on rockers. Then it swung forwards again, though gently still, and ended by very politely, so to say, though decidedly, turning her out. The surprise, it was all too gentle to make her start, confused her a little. Afterwards she felt almost sure that she must have shut her eyes for half a second, for the next thing she knew, she was standing quite steadily just on the forest-side of the small wicket-gate through which one entered into the garden of Dove’s Nest.“Dear me, Cooies,” exclaimed Mary, “thatwasa short-cut.Now, you can never say you are not.”But before she had time to add “fairies,” she found she was talking to the air, or at any rate not to the wood-pigeons, for they had disappeared.Mary almost laughed, though she felt a tiny bit provoked too.“They do treat merathertoo babyishly,” she thought. “They might explain what they are going to do, a little more. But then, after all, in fairy stories they never do, and I am now quite sure that Iamin a sort of fairy story—that is to say in all to do with the Cooies. If it was the night I should think I was dreaming; but it isn’t the night, and I am very glad of it. It is much nicer to have really to do with fairies.”And she ran across the lawn in good spirits, not sorry to have missed the chilly walk through the wood.“It couldn’t but have felt cold after that deliciously warm place,” she thought to herself. “Perhaps that is why they brought me home in that magic way. They wouldn’t like me to get a sore throat, or a sneezing cold, or any of these horrible things. Yes, I may be quite sure they are very, very kind fairies, whatever sort they are exactly.”Pleasance was in the hall as Mary came in. She looked up brightly.“Well, you have come home punctually, Miss Mary,” she said. “I suppose you heard the bell quite distinctly?”“Quite,” said Mary, “both times.”“That is very nice,” said the maid. “Now we can feel quite comfortable about you when you are amusing yourself in the forest. And you don’t feel chilly, I hope, Miss? It would never do for you to catch cold while you are with us.”“No, indeed,” said Mary, smiling. “I shouldn’t like it at all. But you needn’t be afraid. It feltquitewarm in—the forest. At least after the first it did. Shall I get ready for tea now? I suppose godmother will be home soon.”“Sure to be so,” replied Pleasance. “My lady is always punctual. Indeed I thought I heard the ponies’ bells in the distance just before you came in. It will be nice for Miss Verity to find you back and ready to welcome her.”

Mary stood still for a moment or two, gazing after them, or rather gazing at the place where they had been. She felt, as she would have said herself, “rather funny”; not frightened exactly, and certainly very curious to see what was going to happen next, but just alittletimid about making the plunge into the dark mysterious depths of the forest.

But it was now or never.

“If I let myself get silly and run back home, or anything like that,” she thought, “I daresay the Cooies will never care for me again, or come to see me or show me things. For I can see they are rather obstinate, and of course if they are fairies, or partly fairies, they like to be obeyed—fairies always do. And godmother too—I believe she understands about fairies much more than she says—and she always is sure no harm can come to me in the forest. So I’d better be quick and look out carefully for the little grey feather.”

She walked on therefore, not too fast, for fear of passing the signal, and with her eyes fixed on the bushes on the left. But it seemed to her that she had walked a good long way, farther than she expected, before she felt satisfied that she had got to the place where Miss Verity and she had stood the day before.

“Can I have passed it?” she asked herself, “and can Ipossiblyhave missed the feather, or can it have blown away?” and she stopped short, feeling a little anxious.

But just then a very faint “coo” reached her ears; it was scarcely to be heard, more like the shadow of the sound, but still it was plainly in front of her, and it encouraged Mary. She had not come too far, and stepping on again, she soon recognised the spot, and—a little bit on again, and she gave a tiny cry—there, safely nestling among the branches, within reach of her hand—was the wee grey, or rather “dove-coloured” feather.

“I might have known it would be all right—and of course anything fairy-ishcouldn’tblow away,” she thought.

She picked up the feather, and took off her little fur cap, into which she fastened it without any difficulty, for though she had no pin—it isn’t often, is it, that little girls have pins “handy” when wanted?—it seemed to catch into the skin of the fur, all of itself.

“It reminds me,” thought Mary, “of ‘Up the airy mountain—’ that part about bed jacket, green cap, and white owl’s feather—though I certainly don’t want to be stolen away, like little Bridget, for seven years long, even by the Cooies. But I can trust them.”

Then she placed her foot exactly below the branch where she had found the feather and stepped forward carefully, one, two, three, four—up to seven, and then stood still again.

At first she really thought for a moment or two that the wood-pigeons had been playing her a trick. The bushes and trees on both sides seemed to have got so very thick and close; she could not see the least sign of an opening for even a rabbit to get through on either the left or the right! And it felt so cold; so much colder, suddenly, it had become.

“I must go home,” thought Mary, feeling ready to cry. “I believe the Cooies are imps after all, and not nice fairies. Yes, I’d better go home,” and just at that moment came the sound of the big bell, not very loud, but quite distinct Pleasance had not forgotten to ring it. “Three o’clock,” thought Mary, “I had no idea I had been so long. Yes, I must turn back.”

But—what was that other sound? Again, from among the bushes on the left, came the soft, encouraging little voice, “coo-coo,”—“don’t be so distrustful, Mary; try again,” it seemed to say, and as the little girl still hesitated a sudden glimmer of light flickered for a moment through the branches somehow, down to the ground, and then faded as quickly as it had come.

Mary stooped, and with her hands, well protected in their thick winter gloves, tried to push back some of the leaves. To her surprise they, or rather the branches on which they were growing, yielded to her touch in a wonderful way, as if they had been waiting to be put aside, and then she saw before her a very narrow, very dark little path,buta path, though it scarcely looked as if even a little doggie could have made its way along it! But her spirits had got up again by this time, and she pressed on bravely. It took some courage—it was like walking through the very high corn in a very fully grown corn-field, if ever you have done such a mischievous thing?—only with dark trees overhead, and no light anywhere scarcely—all gloom instead of golden, sunlight yellow. Still it could be done, and though Mary’s heart was beating very fast, she persevered.

And before long she was rewarded. As the Cooies had promised, a few minutes were enough to bring her to the end of the chilly dark path, then she saw before her, close at hand, a little white gate.

When I say alittlewhite gate, I do not mean a low one. On the contrary it was high, a good deal higher than the top of Mary’s head, but quite narrow, and it seemed closely barred or wired, so that she could scarcely see through it. She had not time, however, to judge as to this, for almost as soon as she came to a stop in front of it she heard a swish and rustle in the air, and down came from she knew not where a whole flight, or flights of birds, in great excitement, who settled themselves on the gate, inside and outside, so to say, as if to defend it.

They did not chirp or chatter or even coo—“cooing” indeed would not have seemed to suit the state they were in, though she very quickly saw that they were all pigeons, or doves, or birds of that family, though of very varying sizes and colour, but so many, and all so plainly intending to prevent her trying to open the gate that she would have been quite afraid to try to do so. There was perfect silence, however.

“They must be all the uncles and aunts and cousins and relations of the Cooies,” thought Mary. “I expect I shall have to go home, after all, without seeing the secret of the forest, as they certainly don’t seem to want to let me pass in.” She was again mistaken.

Another little rustle in the air, quite a tiny one this time, and Mary felt something alight on each of her shoulders. She glanced up—yes, it was her own friends.

“Coo-coo,” they whispered to her. Then one of them or both—she was often not sure if only one, or the two together, were speaking—turned to the mass of birds clinging to the gate.

“How inhospitable you are!” they said. “What a welcome to a friend! Don’t you see sheisa friend? She has the Queen’s feather, and she has learnt our language,” and then Mary felt that all the pairs of eyes of all the many birds were looking at her, and scarcely knowing that she did so, she raised her hand to her head, and touched the little grey feather nestling in her cap.

Instantly there came another flutter, and in the twinkling of an eye the gate was cleared. Still more, in some way which she could not see, it was opened, or opened itself, dividing, narrow though it was, in the middle, and the birds, as if by magic, arranged themselves in two long rows on each side, seeming to mark a path for her to step along, for of actual path there was none. Inside the gate there was just the very softest, shortest, greenest grass you could imagine, like lovely springy velvet or plush to walk on, and Mary stepped forward, feeling as if each time she put down her foot a sort of pleasure came through it.

Just at first, she scarcely took in all the wonderful things that had happened since she passed through the white gate. The rows of birds made her feel a little shy, for she saw that all their round eyes were fixed on her. But by degrees she began to notice everything more closely.

She seemed still to hear a sort of flutter and rustle that kept on steadily, and yet the birds were quite motionless—those in front of her, that is to say, but after a moment or two she turned round to see if she could find out the cause of the sounds she heard, and then she discovered that as soon as she had passed, the birds rose in couples and flew off, as if to say, “we have received her politely, and now we have other things to attend to.”

On the whole Mary was rather glad of this. The numbers of birds made her, as I have said, feel rather shy and confused.

“I only want my own Cooies,” she thought, “and not all their uncles and aunts and cousins,” and she glanced forward again, trying to see how many more she would have to pass, and at that moment, to her great delight, she caught sight of something she had not seen before.

Right in front of her was another gate, but this time it was quite a low one, she could almost have jumped over it, she fancied, and it was not white, but green—grass green, which was perhaps the reason she had not seen it till she was quite near it. And the rows of birds stopped on this side of it, and, best of all, her Cooies flew down from her shoulders and perched themselves on the gate, which opened as the other had done, for her to pass through, the last of the stranger birds fluttering off as she did so, leaving her alone with her own two friends.

“Oh, I’m so glad they’ve all gone except you two,” she said, with a little sigh of satisfaction. “What quantities of relations you have, Cooies! Do you know, they made me feel quite giddy? I shall have you all to myself now, and you can explain everything to me, and show me all over this beautiful place.”

“Suppose you sit down and rest for a few minutes first,” said Mr Coo. His manners became doubly polite and kind, now that Mary was his guest. “You have walked a good way, farther than you think, and you can see a great many things you may like to ask about, from where you are.”

“Where,” began Mary, “where shall I sit down?” she was going to say, but before she got further she found this was a question she did not need to ask, for just at one side of where she was standing she caught sight of the dearest and queerest arm-chair you ever saw. It was made of moss, or at least covered in moss, green and fresh, but not at all damp-looking. Nor was it so; on the contrary it was deliciously dry and springy.

Mary seated herself with great satisfaction, and the Cooies settled themselves on each arm of her chair and looked at her, their heads well on one side, which she had come to know meant that they were in high good humour.

Then she gazed about her.

She seemed to be in a very, very large bower, all carpeted with the same lovely short grass that she had noticed on first entering, and with smaller bowers opening, like cloisters, on all sides. Up above, it was very high, so high that she could not clearly see if there was any kind of roof or ceiling, or only the interlacing branches of the great tall trees meeting overhead. These trees walled it all in very thickly, it was easy to see, and thus made the dark, almost black look which this innermost spot of the forest had when seen from the outside.

But indeed everything was different from what Mary could have had any expectation of.

To begin with, the air was deliciously mild and warm, though not too hot, or with the shut-in feeling of a conservatory. On the contrary, little breezes were fluttering about, bearing the sweet fresh scents of a garden in late spring or early summer. And the light?

Where did it come from?

Mary gazed about for a minute or two before she spoke. She felt content for a little just to sit and look, and then she was rather afraid of asking any “silly” questions, for she had found out that the Cooies were far cleverer than any one could have imagined, which she explained to her own satisfaction by deciding that they were half, if not whole, fairies!

And this she felt more sure of than ever before, now that she had been led by them into this wonderful bower.

But where did the light come from?

It did not seem like sunshine; it was almost too soft and mellow, and yet it was certainly not moonlight, which is always cold and thin. It was more like sunshine coming through some gently tinted glass, or even silk, but it wasdifferentfrom any light that Mary could liken it to, in her own mind. So this seemed a sensible question to ask.

“Cooies, dear,” she began, “I do feel so happy, and I do thank you for having brought me here to this lovely place. I really feel as if I never wanted to go away. But—it is very, very strange. My head is full of puzzles. And you did say I might ask questions?”

“Certainly,” Mr Coo replied, “ask any you like, though you must understand that we cannot promise you answers to all. Or at least not the kind of answers you want, exactly.”

Mary nodded her head. A feeling came over her that perhaps she would not really want answers to all, that it might spoil the nice part of the puzzles. Still, some things she did want to know.

“Then, first of all,” she said, “where does the light come from? It is so beautifully clear and yet so soft I have never seen any light quite like it.”

“No,” said Mr Coo. “I don’t suppose you ever have,” and Mrs Coo murmured something which sounded like, “How could she?”

“And,” Mr Coo continued, “I am sorry to say that your very first question is one which it is impossible for me to answer in any way which it would be possible for you to understand. I can onlyhalfdo so, by askingyoua question. Have you never heard or read that in fairy-land, real fairy-land, no mortal among the very few who have ever found their way there could tell how it was lighted?”

And as he said this, Mr Coo held his head further on one side than Mary had ever yet seen it.

She gave a little jump; she almost thought she would like to clap her hands.

“Oh, Cooie, dear,” she cried, “that is much nicer than any explanation! Do you really mean that—”

“Sh—softly, please,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I really mean anything. It is just a tiny bit of an idea that I have got leave to put into your head.”

“Leave—got leave,” Mary repeated. “Whom have you got leave from?”

“This place does not all belong to us,” was the reply. “You saw by the sign of the grey feather that I had to get leave to bring you in here. And that is all I can say—at present, any way.”

“But it does mean,” Mary persisted, “it must mean that this is fairy-land?”

“No,” said Mr Coo, “that does not follow. You don’t need to be in the sun to feel the good of its light and warmth.”

“Certainly not,” said Mary, laughing. “There wouldn’t be much left of us in the sun. We’d be frizzled up in a moment, of course, before one could say ‘tic,’ wouldn’t one?”

“Most likely,” replied Mr Coo.

“But still—even if this isn’t fairy-land, it might be close to it?” she went on.

“Yes, it might be,” was the reply.

“Well, then, mayn’t I think it is?”

“It will not do you any harm to do so.”

But here Mrs Coo interrupted.

“Do not tease the dear child,” she said, for Mrs Coo could speak up sometimes. “I promise you you are not far wrong, very far from far wrong indeed, if you do think so.”

Mary felt very pleased and quite ready to go on with her questions. She looked about her to settle what to ask next.

“Please tell me,” she said, “what are all those lots and lots of little arbours opening out of this very big one, and may I run about and peep into them?”

“One question at a time, if you’ve no objection,” said the pigeon on her right hand again. “The small bowers are arranged for separate families when we have our great assemblies. We do everything in a very orderly way. As for looking into them, you may certainly do so—there is a great deal for you to see here, otherwise we would not have brought you. It would not be very amusing to spend all the time in just sitting still, talking to us.”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, rather lazily. “It might not be very amusing, but it is verynice. It is so lovelily warm. But I am not tired now, mayn’t I walk on?”

“I am afraid that to-day,” said one of the Cooies,—which, Mary was not quite sure, as it was sometimes difficult to tell,—“I am afraid—” but just then Mary gave a great start.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I believe that’s the bell; the four o’clock bell that Pleasance was to ring for me. I must go. It will take me a good while to get home,” and she looked rather distressed.

“No, it won’t. We will show you a short-cut,” said both the Cooies together. This time she had no doubt that both were speaking. “Do not be afraid. We knew it was about time for you to go home, and we were just going to tell you so when you heard the bell. This is only a first visit, to teach you the way, as it were.”

“Then may I come again very soon, and see all over, and peep into all the little arbours and everything?” asked Mary, her spirits rising again.

“Of course you may. It will be all arranged, you will see,” said Mr Coo. “There are plans which we will tell you about, all in good time. But you may stay a few minutes longer. Pleasance will not expect you back the very moment she has rung for you.”

And Mary was pleased to lean back in her mossy chair for a little bit.

“It is the warm feeling that is so nice here,” she said presently. “Just right—neither too hot nor too cold. I don’t mind its being a little cold, now the winter is coming, of course. Out-of-doors one can run, and in the house Pleasance says my godmother is sure to give me a fire in my own room as soon as I like, so I daresay I shall be warmer even than at auntie’s house. But itisnice to have the summery feeling back again.”

“Coo-coo,” the wood-pigeons replied, which meant that they quite agreed with her.

“Is it always mild and warm in this funny place?” Mary went on.

“Always, just as you feel it,” said Mr Coo.

“How nice!” said Mary. “I don’t wonder you removed to the forest from the Square gardens. Yet you never seemed cold there. I used to watch you last spring, soon after the winter, before it had begun to get warm, you know, and wish I was dressed in feathers like you. That was before I knew you, or had learnt to talk to you. Itiscold in the nursery early in the morning sometimes, if the fire hasn’t burnt up well, and the little ones sit at the warm side of the table, you see. I shall love to come back here again,” she went on. “You’llpromiseto settle about it soon, won’t you? I do so want to see everything you can show me.”

“We won’t forget,” was the reply. “But it is time for you to be going. Lean back a little more.”

Mary did so, though wondering why, for she was quite getting into the way of obeying her little friends without hesitation.

And to her surprise she felt that the chair, which had seemed almost as if growing out of the ground, tilted back with her, though gently, as if on rockers. Then it swung forwards again, though gently still, and ended by very politely, so to say, though decidedly, turning her out. The surprise, it was all too gentle to make her start, confused her a little. Afterwards she felt almost sure that she must have shut her eyes for half a second, for the next thing she knew, she was standing quite steadily just on the forest-side of the small wicket-gate through which one entered into the garden of Dove’s Nest.

“Dear me, Cooies,” exclaimed Mary, “thatwasa short-cut.Now, you can never say you are not.”

But before she had time to add “fairies,” she found she was talking to the air, or at any rate not to the wood-pigeons, for they had disappeared.

Mary almost laughed, though she felt a tiny bit provoked too.

“They do treat merathertoo babyishly,” she thought. “They might explain what they are going to do, a little more. But then, after all, in fairy stories they never do, and I am now quite sure that Iamin a sort of fairy story—that is to say in all to do with the Cooies. If it was the night I should think I was dreaming; but it isn’t the night, and I am very glad of it. It is much nicer to have really to do with fairies.”

And she ran across the lawn in good spirits, not sorry to have missed the chilly walk through the wood.

“It couldn’t but have felt cold after that deliciously warm place,” she thought to herself. “Perhaps that is why they brought me home in that magic way. They wouldn’t like me to get a sore throat, or a sneezing cold, or any of these horrible things. Yes, I may be quite sure they are very, very kind fairies, whatever sort they are exactly.”

Pleasance was in the hall as Mary came in. She looked up brightly.

“Well, you have come home punctually, Miss Mary,” she said. “I suppose you heard the bell quite distinctly?”

“Quite,” said Mary, “both times.”

“That is very nice,” said the maid. “Now we can feel quite comfortable about you when you are amusing yourself in the forest. And you don’t feel chilly, I hope, Miss? It would never do for you to catch cold while you are with us.”

“No, indeed,” said Mary, smiling. “I shouldn’t like it at all. But you needn’t be afraid. It feltquitewarm in—the forest. At least after the first it did. Shall I get ready for tea now? I suppose godmother will be home soon.”

“Sure to be so,” replied Pleasance. “My lady is always punctual. Indeed I thought I heard the ponies’ bells in the distance just before you came in. It will be nice for Miss Verity to find you back and ready to welcome her.”

Chapter Nine.“That Means Good Luck, I am Sure.”Pleasance’s last words were Miss Verity’s first ones.“Itisnice to find you back,” she said to Mary, as she drove up, with a cheery ting-ting from the ponies’ bells. “And I hope tea is quite ready, for I have had rather a cold drive,” she added, as she got out.“Yes, yes, godmother, dear,” said Mary, who was standing in the porch. “I’m sure it is. And I’m so glad I was here just a few minutes before you.”“I can see you managed to amuse yourself in the forest,” said Miss Verity, when she had taken off her wraps and they were sitting together in the drawing-room, the tea-table in its “winter place” near the fire. “You are looking so rosy and bright.”“I did enjoy myself very much indeed,” said Mary.“I thought you would; indeed I knew you would,” her godmother said. But she did not ask any questions, and there was rather a dreamy tone in her voice and a look in her eyes as she leant back in her chair and gazed into the fire, which made Mary again think to herself, as she had thought several times already, that “godmother herself knows something about the fairy secrets of the forest.”And Mary felt still surer of this when, after a little silence, Miss Verity said quietly—“I shall never feel uneasy about you when you are in the forest—even quite alone—now that I see that you are obedient and thoughtful about keeping promises, my little Cinderella,” and she smiled the pretty smile that made her face look quite young again.“But Cinderelladidforget,” said Mary, laughing; “at least she only rememberedjustin time, didn’t she?”“She had no Pleasance to ring a big bell,” replied her godmother. “Still, she did not mean to disobey, and the very moment she found how late it was, she ran off, even at the risk of offending the prince. I have always thought that one of the nicest parts of the story. For so many would have said to themselves, ‘Oh, I’m sure to be too late, so I’ll just stay on and enjoy myself a little longer.’ If I had not satisfied myself that you are to be trusted, my Mary, I could not let you stay alone in the forest, though for a good dutiful child there can be no safer place.” Mary felt very pleased. And—was it fancy—just then a tiny “coo-coo!” seemed to breathe itself across the room from the side where the window on to the lawn was.“How brightly the fire is burning!” Miss Verity went on, after a little pause. “I wonder if there is frost in the air.”“I don’t know,” said Mary, adding merrily, “but I can tell you, godmother, these are fir-cones in the fire! Perhaps it is that.”“No doubt of it,” said Miss Verity. “I might have guessed it. Did you bring any in with you?”“Not to-day, but I brought some, a few at a time, before. And I think some of the servants have been gathering them. I saw Myrtle with some in her apron, and I have scented them several times about the house. It is such a nice smell.”“Yes, and they burn so beautifully. I have never known any fir-cones like those in our forest, not even in Germany,” replied her godmother.“They’re like everything else about here, I think,” said Mary.Miss Verity looked pleased.“Do look, godmother,” Mary added quickly. “Therearesuch funny pictures in the fire. There, over at your side, do you see? It is like the edge—what should I call it?—of a ship, and somebody looking up as if he was watching something. I know what it makes me think of; it is Michael, I wonder if it is the middle of the night just now where he is, and if perhaps he is standing at the side of his ship looking up at the stars?”“And thinking of home and the dear ones there, and of his little cousin Mary,” added Miss Verity. “Perhaps so, though I think sailors are generally too busy, or too glad to go to sleep when their busy time is over, to have much leisure for star-gazing.”“But I am sure Michael isalways, nearly, thinking of home,” said Mary, with a touch of reproach in her voice. “You don’t know, godmother, how very loving and kind he is.”“I am sure of it,” said Miss Verity, quickly. “Do not mistake me, dear. The brother I loved best of all, long ago, was a sailor, and it is very rarely that sailors have not loving faithful hearts, I think. Does Michael know that you are here with me?”“Oh yes,” said Mary. “He knew it before he went away. He was very glad I was coming. He was sure I would be happy here. You see it is a little lonely sometimes at auntie’s when Michael’s away for such a long time. The little ones are so little.”“Yet here you haven’t even little ones,” said her godmother, smiling. “How is it you are not lonely then?”“I haveyou” said Mary, “and—and the forest, and you let me go about by myself. And I like the country much better than a town.”“Even in winter?” asked Miss Verity.Mary hesitated.“Yes, I think so,” she said, “though the shops areverypretty about Christmas time, and the streets lighted up when it begins to get dark in the afternoons, do look so nice. But I daresay, godmother,hereit is never dull or gloomy, even in winter. The forest must look lovely with snow on the branches, and shiny icicles, and I should think it’s always rather dry to walk about there, on the fir needles.”“It is never wet for very long, certainly, in the forest,” said her godmother, “but still we have dull gloomy days, and days when it never leaves off raining at all, and one is glad to stay at home beside a bright cheery fire like this.”Mary glanced at the fire again—the picture she had seen in it had melted or changed by this time, but in another corner she saw what seemed to her like a sort of arbour, with a bird at the entrance. This reminded her of the secret of the forest, and she wondered to herself what it was like inside the white gate on a dull rainy day such as Miss Verity had been speaking of. Was italwayswarm and bright there? Yes, she could not remember if the wood-pigeons had said so, but she felt sure it must be so.“Otherwise,” she thought, “it would not be even the edge of fairy-land.”Then her mind strayed to other things. She began wondering if she would soon have a letter from Michael, and if the picture in the fire could have been a sort of fairy message from him, and she quite started when her godmother spoke again.“The next time you are in the forest, Mary dear,” she said, “or the first time you feel at a loss for anything to amuse yourself with, I should be very glad of more fir-cones. I like to make a provision of them while they are still perfectly dry and crisp.”“Yes, I am very fond of picking them up,” said Mary. “I might have brought some in already, if I had had a basket with me.”“Pleasance has one or two nice light ones on purpose,” said Miss Verity. “She will show you where she keeps them. If to-morrow is fine again, like to-day,” she went on, “I should like you to go a drive with me. I think Jackdaw and Magpie were very surprised at my not taking you to-day: I often fancy they go along with more spirit when there is some one with me; they like to hear our voices, and little Thomas and I seldom converse.” Little Thomas was the small groom who sat in the back seat, and he was noted for his silence, an uncommon quality in a boy!Mary laughed.“No,” she said, “I couldn’t fancy you having much conversation with little Thomas, certainly.”She felt in her heart just a tiny bit disappointed that there was no likelihood of her going to the forest again the next day. But then her godmother was so good to her that she knew it would be very wrong and ungrateful not to be glad to do all she wished. And besides—“If I wasn’t quite good, or at least trying to be so,” she said to herself, “the Cooies wouldn’t care for me, or make plans for me or show me things or anything. I am quite sure they would not.”This was her last waking thought that night, and almost, I think, her first the next morning.And when she was dressed, and stood for a moment or two at the casement window, which she had opened a little to have a breath of the forest air, there seemed to come an answer to her thought.“Coo-coo, coo,” sounded softly from the direction of the trees, and Mary just at first hoped that it would be followed by the rustle of little wings and a morning visit from her two friends. But no, only the sweet voices again, this time a little farther off, and Mary, who was getting wonderfully quick at understanding her Cooies’ ways, knew that this meant they were not coming to visit her to-day, but that they were pleased with what she meant to try to do and feel.The morning passed pleasantly, and the sky, which had been rather grey and overcast early in the day, cleared up about noon and promised to be bright and sunny for the remaining hours.So Mary felt quite light-hearted when, shortly after luncheon, Miss Verity sent her to get ready for their drive.“Wrap yourself up warmly,” her godmother said. “It gets chilly in the afternoon—or stay—I have an idea,” and with a smile on her kind face Miss Verity went upstairs, and Mary heard her talking to Pleasance.In a few minutes she came back, carrying something over her arm which looked to Mary as if her Cooies and all their numerous relations had helped to make it! It was a little cape—made, not of fur, but of tiny feathers, too soft and small to bristle or break, of every shade of bluey-grey, and lined with white, still quite clean, though the cape was evidently old, and the white had grown rather creamy-coloured through lying by for many years.“It was mine when I was a little girl like you,” said her godmother. “It was considered my very best, and somehow it never got dirty or seemed to need cleaning, though some of the shades are very delicate, as you see. It will be just the thing for you to wear when you drive with me these chilly afternoons.”Mary eyed the cloak with great interest and approval.“It is lovely,” she said, “and wonderful I don’t think you could get one like it in any shop now, godmother, could you?”Miss Verity shook her head.“I doubt if you could,” she said. “And I do not even know if it came from a shop long ago. It was given to my mother for me when I was only a baby by some friend ofhermother’s, and it came ‘from abroad,’ which was all I ever knew about it. But we must be quick, dear; Jackdaw and Magpie are not fond of waiting at the door.”Nor were they; as Mary ran downstairs she heard their bells tinkling impatiently. And when she called out cheerfully—“We’re coming, ponies, we’re coming,” it seemed as if the little satisfied toss of their heads meant that they were pleased that she was coming too!It was a cold day, but dry and crisp, and Mary felt very cosy with the soft grey cape on the top of her own little scarlet cloth jacket. Miss Verity drove quickly, though, as she told Mary, they had not so very far to go.“But I shall have to stay half-an-hour or so at Crook Edge, the house I want to call at,” she added. “I am going to say good-bye to two girls, who have lived there for some years with their father. He died last year, and now they are leaving for good. Blanche, the elder, is going to be married, and her younger sister, who is scarcely grown-up, is to live with her. They are very sweet girls.”“Are you very sorry to say good-bye to them?” Mary asked.Miss Verity hesitated.“For my own sake, yes. But I am glad for them. It would have been too quiet a life at Crook Edge. It is an out-of-the-way place, at the side of the loneliest part of the forest.”“Everywhere about here seems to have to do with the forest, doesn’t it?” said Mary.“Yes, it never lets itself be forgotten,” her godmother replied, glancing as she spoke at the dark green line a little distance off, which seemed as it were to follow them as they went, “and we who love it and almost feel as if we were its children, don’t want ever to forget it.”“No, no, of course not,” said Mary eagerly. “I feel like that too, though I haven’t been very long here. I know quite how you mean.”Miss Verity smiled, the very pleased kind of smile that, as Mary had learnt to know, told of her liking to feel that her little god-daughter understood and sympathised in feelings that some children would not have been able to share.They did not talk much more till they reached Crook Edge, where Miss Verity’s young friends were looking out for them. The elder of the two girls, whose name was Blanche, was very pretty, almost the prettiest person, Mary thought, that she had ever seen. She was tall and slight and very fair; perhaps the black dress she still wore made her seem taller and slighter and fairer than if she had been in colour, and her expression was very sweet. She looked so lovingly at her younger sister, who was also pretty, though not as pretty as Blanche, that Mary could not help thinking to herself that it must be very nice to have a kind grown-up sister! And also felt very pleased when both the girls kissed her as she sprang out of the pony-carriage.“What a delicious cloak,” said Blanche, as she was helping her visitors to take off some of their wraps in the hall. “It suits your house, Miss Verity. It is really like a dove’s mantle.”“Yes,” Miss Verity replied, “it is a rather remarkable cloak, and the odd thing is that though I have had it nearly all my life, I do not really know its history, and there is no one who can tell it to me.”“I have never seen a cloak the least like it,” said Blanche, stroking the soft feathers as she spoke. “But then,” she went on, half-laughingly, “it only suits Dove’s Nest. Nothing there seems quite like anywhere else: don’t you think so, Mary?”“Yes,” said Mary. “Everything is prettier and funnier than anywhere else.”“I always envy the name,” said Blanche. “Ourname is so ugly and rough—Crook Edge; but it doesn’t matter now, as it will so soon be our home no longer,” and she gave just a little sigh.“Are you sorry to go away?” asked Mary, looking up gently with her wistful hazel eyes.“One is always sorry to go away from what has been a home,” said Blanche. “And Milly and I love the forest. By the bye, Miss Verity, we have had the white dove here again since I saw you,—the large white dove.”“Have you, my dear?” said Miss Verity, looking interested. “That means good luck, I feel sure.”“Good luck and good-bye,” said Blanche. “Yes, she came and perched on a tree in the garden, and cooed so sweetly. The gardener says she is too large for a dove; that she must be some kind of wood-pigeon only.”“Unless,” added Milly, “unless, as he says, ‘she’s one as has strayed from furrin parts.’ But I don’t think so. She looks quite at home, and not at all cold or starved. Anyway Blanche and I always call her the white dove. Sheisso pretty, and one day we thought we saw something gleaming on her neck, like a tiny gold chain—that almost seems as if she was a pet bird, doesn’t it?”“Or a fairy one?” said Miss Verity, smiling.They had lingered at Crook Edge rather longer than Mary’s godmother had intended, and though the day was still fine, it was beginning to get dark and the clouds were massing as if rain might be not very far off. Mary gave a little shiver, and Miss Verity looked a trifle uneasy.“You are not cold, dear?” she said.“Oh no,” said the little girl, “I don’t think Icouldbe, with this cloak. It was just a sort of feeling, you know, when the night seems to be coming.”All the same, she said to herself, though Miss Verity whipped up the ponies and they went along at a good pace:“I wish we were at home.”And, wonderful to tell, before she had time to wish it again, there they were! For the next words Mary heard were,—“Wake up, dear. We are at Dove’s Nest.”And when she opened her eyes, there was Miss Verity’s face smiling down on her, as she half-lay, half-sat in her place with her head on her godmother’s shoulder, and Myrtle and Pleasance looking a little concerned, as “the ladies” had been later of returning than usual, but rather amused too, and both quite ready to lift “Miss Mary” out and carry her to the warmth and brightness indoors.How Miss Verity had managed to drive with her godchild peacefully making a pillow of her arm is a puzzle I cannot explain.But as Mary slipped off the feather cloak, feeling as warm as a toast, she looked at it rather curiously, for she had her own thoughts about it.“Shall I keep it in my room, godmother?” she asked. “That is to say, if you mean to lend it me again.”“You may count it yours as long as you are here,” Miss Verity replied. “I am sure you will take care of it. And—then we shall see.”“Thank you very much,” said Mary, adding, “I don’t think I should like to take it away with me. It would get dirty in a town, and that would make me unhappy. I have one drawer upstairs with nothing in. I should like to keep it in there.”“Very well, you may, and Pleasance will give you some nice tissue-paper to cover it with.”Pleasance did not forget to do so. Mary found two or three large sheets of pale-blue paper lying ready on her bed late that evening, in which she carefully wrapped the mantle.Perhaps it was because she did this the last thing before going to sleep, that she had strange dreams that night, in which the cloak, and the wood-pigeons, and pretty Blanche and her cousin Michael and her godmother all seemed to be mixed up together, though in the morning she could not distinctly remember anything except that the dreams had been interesting and pleasant.“I wonder if my Cooies could tell anything about the feather cloak,” she thought, “and oh, I do wonder if the white dove is any relation of theirs, or if they know her.”And this morning too she jumped out of bed the very moment Pleasance came to call her, so that she might dress quickly and have a minute or two to stand at the window before the bell rang, so that if the wood-pigeons were anywhere near, they could come to talk to her.

Pleasance’s last words were Miss Verity’s first ones.

“Itisnice to find you back,” she said to Mary, as she drove up, with a cheery ting-ting from the ponies’ bells. “And I hope tea is quite ready, for I have had rather a cold drive,” she added, as she got out.

“Yes, yes, godmother, dear,” said Mary, who was standing in the porch. “I’m sure it is. And I’m so glad I was here just a few minutes before you.”

“I can see you managed to amuse yourself in the forest,” said Miss Verity, when she had taken off her wraps and they were sitting together in the drawing-room, the tea-table in its “winter place” near the fire. “You are looking so rosy and bright.”

“I did enjoy myself very much indeed,” said Mary.

“I thought you would; indeed I knew you would,” her godmother said. But she did not ask any questions, and there was rather a dreamy tone in her voice and a look in her eyes as she leant back in her chair and gazed into the fire, which made Mary again think to herself, as she had thought several times already, that “godmother herself knows something about the fairy secrets of the forest.”

And Mary felt still surer of this when, after a little silence, Miss Verity said quietly—

“I shall never feel uneasy about you when you are in the forest—even quite alone—now that I see that you are obedient and thoughtful about keeping promises, my little Cinderella,” and she smiled the pretty smile that made her face look quite young again.

“But Cinderelladidforget,” said Mary, laughing; “at least she only rememberedjustin time, didn’t she?”

“She had no Pleasance to ring a big bell,” replied her godmother. “Still, she did not mean to disobey, and the very moment she found how late it was, she ran off, even at the risk of offending the prince. I have always thought that one of the nicest parts of the story. For so many would have said to themselves, ‘Oh, I’m sure to be too late, so I’ll just stay on and enjoy myself a little longer.’ If I had not satisfied myself that you are to be trusted, my Mary, I could not let you stay alone in the forest, though for a good dutiful child there can be no safer place.” Mary felt very pleased. And—was it fancy—just then a tiny “coo-coo!” seemed to breathe itself across the room from the side where the window on to the lawn was.

“How brightly the fire is burning!” Miss Verity went on, after a little pause. “I wonder if there is frost in the air.”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, adding merrily, “but I can tell you, godmother, these are fir-cones in the fire! Perhaps it is that.”

“No doubt of it,” said Miss Verity. “I might have guessed it. Did you bring any in with you?”

“Not to-day, but I brought some, a few at a time, before. And I think some of the servants have been gathering them. I saw Myrtle with some in her apron, and I have scented them several times about the house. It is such a nice smell.”

“Yes, and they burn so beautifully. I have never known any fir-cones like those in our forest, not even in Germany,” replied her godmother.

“They’re like everything else about here, I think,” said Mary.

Miss Verity looked pleased.

“Do look, godmother,” Mary added quickly. “Therearesuch funny pictures in the fire. There, over at your side, do you see? It is like the edge—what should I call it?—of a ship, and somebody looking up as if he was watching something. I know what it makes me think of; it is Michael, I wonder if it is the middle of the night just now where he is, and if perhaps he is standing at the side of his ship looking up at the stars?”

“And thinking of home and the dear ones there, and of his little cousin Mary,” added Miss Verity. “Perhaps so, though I think sailors are generally too busy, or too glad to go to sleep when their busy time is over, to have much leisure for star-gazing.”

“But I am sure Michael isalways, nearly, thinking of home,” said Mary, with a touch of reproach in her voice. “You don’t know, godmother, how very loving and kind he is.”

“I am sure of it,” said Miss Verity, quickly. “Do not mistake me, dear. The brother I loved best of all, long ago, was a sailor, and it is very rarely that sailors have not loving faithful hearts, I think. Does Michael know that you are here with me?”

“Oh yes,” said Mary. “He knew it before he went away. He was very glad I was coming. He was sure I would be happy here. You see it is a little lonely sometimes at auntie’s when Michael’s away for such a long time. The little ones are so little.”

“Yet here you haven’t even little ones,” said her godmother, smiling. “How is it you are not lonely then?”

“I haveyou” said Mary, “and—and the forest, and you let me go about by myself. And I like the country much better than a town.”

“Even in winter?” asked Miss Verity.

Mary hesitated.

“Yes, I think so,” she said, “though the shops areverypretty about Christmas time, and the streets lighted up when it begins to get dark in the afternoons, do look so nice. But I daresay, godmother,hereit is never dull or gloomy, even in winter. The forest must look lovely with snow on the branches, and shiny icicles, and I should think it’s always rather dry to walk about there, on the fir needles.”

“It is never wet for very long, certainly, in the forest,” said her godmother, “but still we have dull gloomy days, and days when it never leaves off raining at all, and one is glad to stay at home beside a bright cheery fire like this.”

Mary glanced at the fire again—the picture she had seen in it had melted or changed by this time, but in another corner she saw what seemed to her like a sort of arbour, with a bird at the entrance. This reminded her of the secret of the forest, and she wondered to herself what it was like inside the white gate on a dull rainy day such as Miss Verity had been speaking of. Was italwayswarm and bright there? Yes, she could not remember if the wood-pigeons had said so, but she felt sure it must be so.

“Otherwise,” she thought, “it would not be even the edge of fairy-land.”

Then her mind strayed to other things. She began wondering if she would soon have a letter from Michael, and if the picture in the fire could have been a sort of fairy message from him, and she quite started when her godmother spoke again.

“The next time you are in the forest, Mary dear,” she said, “or the first time you feel at a loss for anything to amuse yourself with, I should be very glad of more fir-cones. I like to make a provision of them while they are still perfectly dry and crisp.”

“Yes, I am very fond of picking them up,” said Mary. “I might have brought some in already, if I had had a basket with me.”

“Pleasance has one or two nice light ones on purpose,” said Miss Verity. “She will show you where she keeps them. If to-morrow is fine again, like to-day,” she went on, “I should like you to go a drive with me. I think Jackdaw and Magpie were very surprised at my not taking you to-day: I often fancy they go along with more spirit when there is some one with me; they like to hear our voices, and little Thomas and I seldom converse.” Little Thomas was the small groom who sat in the back seat, and he was noted for his silence, an uncommon quality in a boy!

Mary laughed.

“No,” she said, “I couldn’t fancy you having much conversation with little Thomas, certainly.”

She felt in her heart just a tiny bit disappointed that there was no likelihood of her going to the forest again the next day. But then her godmother was so good to her that she knew it would be very wrong and ungrateful not to be glad to do all she wished. And besides—

“If I wasn’t quite good, or at least trying to be so,” she said to herself, “the Cooies wouldn’t care for me, or make plans for me or show me things or anything. I am quite sure they would not.”

This was her last waking thought that night, and almost, I think, her first the next morning.

And when she was dressed, and stood for a moment or two at the casement window, which she had opened a little to have a breath of the forest air, there seemed to come an answer to her thought.

“Coo-coo, coo,” sounded softly from the direction of the trees, and Mary just at first hoped that it would be followed by the rustle of little wings and a morning visit from her two friends. But no, only the sweet voices again, this time a little farther off, and Mary, who was getting wonderfully quick at understanding her Cooies’ ways, knew that this meant they were not coming to visit her to-day, but that they were pleased with what she meant to try to do and feel.

The morning passed pleasantly, and the sky, which had been rather grey and overcast early in the day, cleared up about noon and promised to be bright and sunny for the remaining hours.

So Mary felt quite light-hearted when, shortly after luncheon, Miss Verity sent her to get ready for their drive.

“Wrap yourself up warmly,” her godmother said. “It gets chilly in the afternoon—or stay—I have an idea,” and with a smile on her kind face Miss Verity went upstairs, and Mary heard her talking to Pleasance.

In a few minutes she came back, carrying something over her arm which looked to Mary as if her Cooies and all their numerous relations had helped to make it! It was a little cape—made, not of fur, but of tiny feathers, too soft and small to bristle or break, of every shade of bluey-grey, and lined with white, still quite clean, though the cape was evidently old, and the white had grown rather creamy-coloured through lying by for many years.

“It was mine when I was a little girl like you,” said her godmother. “It was considered my very best, and somehow it never got dirty or seemed to need cleaning, though some of the shades are very delicate, as you see. It will be just the thing for you to wear when you drive with me these chilly afternoons.”

Mary eyed the cloak with great interest and approval.

“It is lovely,” she said, “and wonderful I don’t think you could get one like it in any shop now, godmother, could you?”

Miss Verity shook her head.

“I doubt if you could,” she said. “And I do not even know if it came from a shop long ago. It was given to my mother for me when I was only a baby by some friend ofhermother’s, and it came ‘from abroad,’ which was all I ever knew about it. But we must be quick, dear; Jackdaw and Magpie are not fond of waiting at the door.”

Nor were they; as Mary ran downstairs she heard their bells tinkling impatiently. And when she called out cheerfully—

“We’re coming, ponies, we’re coming,” it seemed as if the little satisfied toss of their heads meant that they were pleased that she was coming too!

It was a cold day, but dry and crisp, and Mary felt very cosy with the soft grey cape on the top of her own little scarlet cloth jacket. Miss Verity drove quickly, though, as she told Mary, they had not so very far to go.

“But I shall have to stay half-an-hour or so at Crook Edge, the house I want to call at,” she added. “I am going to say good-bye to two girls, who have lived there for some years with their father. He died last year, and now they are leaving for good. Blanche, the elder, is going to be married, and her younger sister, who is scarcely grown-up, is to live with her. They are very sweet girls.”

“Are you very sorry to say good-bye to them?” Mary asked.

Miss Verity hesitated.

“For my own sake, yes. But I am glad for them. It would have been too quiet a life at Crook Edge. It is an out-of-the-way place, at the side of the loneliest part of the forest.”

“Everywhere about here seems to have to do with the forest, doesn’t it?” said Mary.

“Yes, it never lets itself be forgotten,” her godmother replied, glancing as she spoke at the dark green line a little distance off, which seemed as it were to follow them as they went, “and we who love it and almost feel as if we were its children, don’t want ever to forget it.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Mary eagerly. “I feel like that too, though I haven’t been very long here. I know quite how you mean.”

Miss Verity smiled, the very pleased kind of smile that, as Mary had learnt to know, told of her liking to feel that her little god-daughter understood and sympathised in feelings that some children would not have been able to share.

They did not talk much more till they reached Crook Edge, where Miss Verity’s young friends were looking out for them. The elder of the two girls, whose name was Blanche, was very pretty, almost the prettiest person, Mary thought, that she had ever seen. She was tall and slight and very fair; perhaps the black dress she still wore made her seem taller and slighter and fairer than if she had been in colour, and her expression was very sweet. She looked so lovingly at her younger sister, who was also pretty, though not as pretty as Blanche, that Mary could not help thinking to herself that it must be very nice to have a kind grown-up sister! And also felt very pleased when both the girls kissed her as she sprang out of the pony-carriage.

“What a delicious cloak,” said Blanche, as she was helping her visitors to take off some of their wraps in the hall. “It suits your house, Miss Verity. It is really like a dove’s mantle.”

“Yes,” Miss Verity replied, “it is a rather remarkable cloak, and the odd thing is that though I have had it nearly all my life, I do not really know its history, and there is no one who can tell it to me.”

“I have never seen a cloak the least like it,” said Blanche, stroking the soft feathers as she spoke. “But then,” she went on, half-laughingly, “it only suits Dove’s Nest. Nothing there seems quite like anywhere else: don’t you think so, Mary?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Everything is prettier and funnier than anywhere else.”

“I always envy the name,” said Blanche. “Ourname is so ugly and rough—Crook Edge; but it doesn’t matter now, as it will so soon be our home no longer,” and she gave just a little sigh.

“Are you sorry to go away?” asked Mary, looking up gently with her wistful hazel eyes.

“One is always sorry to go away from what has been a home,” said Blanche. “And Milly and I love the forest. By the bye, Miss Verity, we have had the white dove here again since I saw you,—the large white dove.”

“Have you, my dear?” said Miss Verity, looking interested. “That means good luck, I feel sure.”

“Good luck and good-bye,” said Blanche. “Yes, she came and perched on a tree in the garden, and cooed so sweetly. The gardener says she is too large for a dove; that she must be some kind of wood-pigeon only.”

“Unless,” added Milly, “unless, as he says, ‘she’s one as has strayed from furrin parts.’ But I don’t think so. She looks quite at home, and not at all cold or starved. Anyway Blanche and I always call her the white dove. Sheisso pretty, and one day we thought we saw something gleaming on her neck, like a tiny gold chain—that almost seems as if she was a pet bird, doesn’t it?”

“Or a fairy one?” said Miss Verity, smiling.

They had lingered at Crook Edge rather longer than Mary’s godmother had intended, and though the day was still fine, it was beginning to get dark and the clouds were massing as if rain might be not very far off. Mary gave a little shiver, and Miss Verity looked a trifle uneasy.

“You are not cold, dear?” she said.

“Oh no,” said the little girl, “I don’t think Icouldbe, with this cloak. It was just a sort of feeling, you know, when the night seems to be coming.”

All the same, she said to herself, though Miss Verity whipped up the ponies and they went along at a good pace:

“I wish we were at home.”

And, wonderful to tell, before she had time to wish it again, there they were! For the next words Mary heard were,—

“Wake up, dear. We are at Dove’s Nest.”

And when she opened her eyes, there was Miss Verity’s face smiling down on her, as she half-lay, half-sat in her place with her head on her godmother’s shoulder, and Myrtle and Pleasance looking a little concerned, as “the ladies” had been later of returning than usual, but rather amused too, and both quite ready to lift “Miss Mary” out and carry her to the warmth and brightness indoors.

How Miss Verity had managed to drive with her godchild peacefully making a pillow of her arm is a puzzle I cannot explain.

But as Mary slipped off the feather cloak, feeling as warm as a toast, she looked at it rather curiously, for she had her own thoughts about it.

“Shall I keep it in my room, godmother?” she asked. “That is to say, if you mean to lend it me again.”

“You may count it yours as long as you are here,” Miss Verity replied. “I am sure you will take care of it. And—then we shall see.”

“Thank you very much,” said Mary, adding, “I don’t think I should like to take it away with me. It would get dirty in a town, and that would make me unhappy. I have one drawer upstairs with nothing in. I should like to keep it in there.”

“Very well, you may, and Pleasance will give you some nice tissue-paper to cover it with.”

Pleasance did not forget to do so. Mary found two or three large sheets of pale-blue paper lying ready on her bed late that evening, in which she carefully wrapped the mantle.

Perhaps it was because she did this the last thing before going to sleep, that she had strange dreams that night, in which the cloak, and the wood-pigeons, and pretty Blanche and her cousin Michael and her godmother all seemed to be mixed up together, though in the morning she could not distinctly remember anything except that the dreams had been interesting and pleasant.

“I wonder if my Cooies could tell anything about the feather cloak,” she thought, “and oh, I do wonder if the white dove is any relation of theirs, or if they know her.”

And this morning too she jumped out of bed the very moment Pleasance came to call her, so that she might dress quickly and have a minute or two to stand at the window before the bell rang, so that if the wood-pigeons were anywhere near, they could come to talk to her.

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