“Unless,” added Milly, “unless, as he says, ‘she’s one as has strayed from furrin parts.’ But I don’t think so. She looks quite at home, and not at all cold or starved. Anyway Blanche and I always call her the white dove. She is so pretty, and one day we thought we saw something gleaming on her neck, like a tiny gold chain—that almost seems as if she was a pet bird, doesn’t it?”
“Or a fairy one?” said Miss Verity, smiling.
They had lingered at Crook Edge rather longer than Mary’s godmother had intended, and though the day was still fine, it was beginning to get dark and the clouds were massing as if rain might be not very far off. Mary gave a little shiver, and Miss Verity looked a trifle uneasy.
“You are not cold, dear?” she said.
“Oh no,” said the little girl, “I don’t think I could be, with this cloak. It was just a sort of feeling, you know, when the night seems to be coming.”
All the same, she said to herself, though Miss Verity whipped up the ponies and they went along at a good pace:
“I wish we were at home.”
And, wonderful to tell, before she had time to wish it again, there they were! For the next words Mary heard were,—
“Wake up, dear. We are at Dove’s Nest.”
And when she opened her eyes, there was Miss Verity’s face smiling down on her, as she half-lay, half-sat in her place with her head on her godmother’s shoulder, and Myrtle and Pleasance looking a little concerned, as “the ladies” had been later of returning than usual, but rather amused too, and both quite ready to lift “Miss Mary” out and carry her to the warmth and brightness indoors.