“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 getting too clever! 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 I really want 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.