They did not talk much more till they reached Crook Edge, where Miss Verity’s young friends were looking out for them. The elder of the two girls, whose name was Blanche, was very pretty, almost the prettiest person, Mary thought, that she had ever seen. She was tall and slight and very fair; perhaps the black dress she still wore made her seem taller and slighter and fairer than if she had been in colour, and her expression was very sweet. She looked so lovingly at her younger sister, who was also pretty, though not as pretty as Blanche, that Mary could not help thinking to herself that it must be very nice to have a kind grown-up sister! And also felt very pleased when both the girls kissed her as she sprang out of the pony-carriage.
“What a delicious cloak,” said Blanche, as she was helping her visitors to take off some of their wraps in the hall. “It suits your house, Miss Verity. It is really like a dove’s mantle.”
“Yes,” Miss Verity replied, “it is a rather remarkable cloak, and the odd thing is that though I have had it nearly all my life, I do not really know its history, and there is no one who can tell it to me.”
“I have never seen a cloak the least like it,” said Blanche, stroking the soft feathers as she spoke. “But then,” she went on, half-laughingly, “it only suits Dove’s Nest. Nothing there seems quite like anywhere else: don’t you think so, Mary?”
“Yes,” said Mary. “Everything is prettier and funnier than anywhere else.”
“I always envy the name,” said Blanche. “Our name is so ugly and rough—Crook Edge; but it doesn’t matter now, as it will so soon be our home no longer,” and she gave just a little sigh.
“Are you sorry to go away?” asked Mary, looking up gently with her wistful hazel eyes.
“One is always sorry to go away from what has been a home,” said Blanche. “And Milly and I love the forest. By the bye, Miss Verity, we have had the white dove here again since I saw you,—the large white dove.”
“Have you, my dear?” said Miss Verity, looking interested. “That means good luck, I feel sure.”
“Good luck and good-bye,” said Blanche. “Yes, she came and perched on a tree in the garden, and cooed so sweetly. The gardener says she is too large for a dove; that she must be some kind of wood-pigeon only.”