“It is nice to find you back,” she said to Mary, as she drove up, with a cheery ting-ting from the ponies’ bells. “And I hope tea is quite ready, for I have had rather a cold drive,” she added, as she got out.
“Yes, yes, godmother, dear,” said Mary, who was standing in the porch. “I’m sure it is. And I’m so glad I was here just a few minutes before you.”
“I can see you managed to amuse yourself in the forest,” said Miss Verity, when she had taken off her wraps and they were sitting together in the drawing-room, the tea-table in its “winter place” near the fire. “You are looking so rosy and bright.”
“I did enjoy myself very much indeed,” said Mary.
“I thought you would; indeed I knew you would,” her godmother said. But she did not ask any questions, and there was rather a dreamy tone in her voice and a look in her eyes as she leant back in her chair and gazed into the fire, which made Mary again think to herself, as she had thought several times already, that “godmother herself knows something about the fairy secrets of the forest.”
And Mary felt still surer of this when, after a little silence, Miss Verity said quietly—
“I shall never feel uneasy about you when you are in the forest—even quite alone—now that I see that you are obedient and thoughtful about keeping promises, my little Cinderella,” and she smiled the pretty smile that made her face look quite young again.
“But Cinderella did forget,” said Mary, laughing; “at least she only remembered just in time, didn’t she?”
“She had no Pleasance to ring a big bell,” replied her godmother. “Still, she did not mean to disobey, and the very moment she found how late it was, she ran off, even at the risk of offending the prince. I have always thought that one of the nicest parts of the story. For so many would have said to themselves, ‘Oh, I’m sure to be too late, so I’ll just stay on and enjoy myself a little longer.’ If I had not satisfied myself that you are to be trusted, my Mary, I could not let you stay alone in the forest, though for a good dutiful child there can be no safer place.” Mary felt very pleased. And—was it fancy—just then a tiny “coo-coo!” seemed to breathe itself across the room from the side where the window on to the lawn was.
“How brightly the fire is burning!” Miss Verity went on, after a little pause. “I wonder if there is frost in the air.”