“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.”
“How do you 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.”