“Where we met to-day,” he went on, “and there we shall meet you again”; and before Mary had time to say any more, the wood-pigeons were off, out of sight!
And Mary rather slowly made her way to the house, carrying the basket of fir-cones and thinking over all she had seen, and wondering what her friends meant by their curious hints.
Chapter Eleven.
“From The Islands of Gorgeous Colours.”
Miss Verity took Mary a drive again the next day. It was not as interesting as the last one—the one to Crook Edge, I mean, to see Blanche and Milly. They did not pay any visits, as Miss Verity had several messages in the little town two or three miles off, where she had to go once a week or so to the shops.
Mary went into one or two of them with her godmother, and was amused by their quaint old-fashionedness; but when it came to a call at the Post-Office, where Miss Verity had some business to see to, she told Mary she had better wait outside in the pony-carriage, as it was a bright sunny afternoon, and she was well wrapped up in her feather cloak.
So Mary sat there thinking, and I daresay you can guess what her thoughts were about. She was wondering and wondering what the wood-pigeons had meant by their hints; and just as her godmother came out again and stepped into the carriage, she had got the length of saying to herself—
“Oh, I can’t guess, and I’m tired of puzzling about it any more. I just wish—oh, how I do wish—that I could find a perfectly white feather, the whitest that ever was seen! If only one of those dear little fluffy clouds would drop down and turn into one, it would do beautifully.”