Then Mary gave her and Jackdaw a lump of sugar each, which they seemed to enjoy very much, and after that Miss Verity took her round the kitchen garden and the little poultry-yard, and even to pay a visit to the pig-sty, where lived two fat little pink pigs, looking cleaner, Mary said, than any pigs she had ever seen before.
And just as they were going into the house again Miss Verity stood still for a moment.
“Listen,” she said, “is it not pretty?” and then came to their ears the sweet sounds so familiar to Mary—
“Coo-coo, Coo-coo.”
Mary’s eyes sparkled. She felt sure the voices were those of her own little friends.
Lessons hardly seemed lessons at Dove’s Nest. Miss Verity had such an interesting way of explaining things, and seeming as if she herself enjoyed what they talked about. Yet she was very particular too, and I think that sensible children like to feel that their teachers are particular, just as sensible ponies like to feel that the person holding the reins knows how to drive. She was not satisfied with Mary’s being able to repeat the fable rightly till she had gone through it with her and saw that she understood it all quite thoroughly, and then she corrected some of Mary’s pronunciation, which made it all sound ever so much prettier. After that, there was a sort of geography lesson, as Mary was very anxious to see on the map exactly where her dear Michael was going to, and how he would get there, so that the time passed so quickly that Mary could scarcely believe when her godmother looked at her watch and exclaimed—
“My dear child, it is one o’clock, and we have luncheon at a quarter past! Auntie would think I was giving you far too many lessons.”
“No, no, she wouldn’t,” said Mary, laughing and shaking back her curls, which had tumbled over her eyes while she was bending to look at the atlas. “Auntie would be very pleased, for it doesn’t seem a bit like lessons. It is almost as nice as hearing stories.”
At luncheon, which was of course Mary’s real dinner, her godmother began talking about what they should do that afternoon.
“Would you rather drive or go a walk?” she said. Mary was burning with eagerness to explore the forest a little. She knew that till Miss Verity was satisfied that there would be no fear of her losing her way among the trees she could not hope for leave to wander about by herself.