“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!