But Mrs Coo did more than think.
“Of course,” she said, “there’s only one thing to be done. We must come back again to-morrow.”
She spoke just a tiny bit sharply.
“We are very busy,” said Mr Coo, “getting settled, you see, and choosing where our new nest is to be, and returning our neighbours’ calls, and so on.”
“All that can stand over,” said Mrs Coo. “Just say, my dear, what time to-morrow will be best.”
“I think” said Mary, “the best time will be when we come in from our walk in the morning. The little ones go to bed then for an hour, and I’ve had my lessons, and nurse generally tells me to take a book and sit still, and if it isn’t cold she lets me come up to my room, and she stays in the night nursery to keep Fritz and Twitter and baby from jumping out of their cots or teasing each other. Yes, please come about twelve o’clock, and would you like anything to eat?”
“You are very kind,” said Mr and Mrs Coo together. “A few crumbs and a little fresh water, perhaps,” and then off they flew.
Mary gazed after them for a moment or two, till their pearly grey wings were almost out of sight. She felt very happy—it was lovely to have seen them again; still more lovely to find that the wonderful, rare gift of being able to understand and talk to them had come to her.
“I won’t tell any one about it,” she decided, as she ran downstairs. “They would only laugh and call me fanciful that horrid way. Perhaps Fritz and Twitter wouldn’t; they’d just think it was a sort of fairy story I was making up for them—and it is a sort of fairy story, only it’s true! But they’re too little, they’d repeat it all to nurse, and of course it would be very wrong to tell them anything they weren’t to tell nurse. Michael wouldn’t have laughed at me; at least he wouldn’t have before, but now that he thinks I tell what isn’t true, he’d do worse than laugh at me. He’d look shocked again—oh dear!”
And Mary’s face, which had been so bright a minute or two ago, grew sad and grave, but just as she opened the nursery door another thought struck her.