Then she thought how and where she could keep the feather safe, and secure from getting the least spotted. She decided that its old home—the inside of Michael’s letter—was as safe as anywhere, but first she tore off a little piece of the blue tissue-paper round the “fairy cloak” and folded the feather in it.
To-morrow was fine, and all went as Mary hoped. Very soon after luncheon she set off, basket on arm, to the forest. Without difficulty she found the spot where the wood-pigeons had met her the last time, and which she knew was close to the entrance to the “secret place,” and there set to work to gather cones as fast as she could.
There were plenty, but still it was rather tiring, to keep stooping for them, scarcely allowing herself a moment’s rest, and more than once she wished that the Cooies would make haste and come to her help.
She was not afraid of their forgetting her, however, she knew they would come in time, and so they did, for before her basket was more than three-quarters full she heard the slight rustle in the air and felt the little feet on her shoulders.
“There you are!” she exclaimed joyfully, “and oh, dear Cooies, do you know what I have got?” and she drew out the precious feather.
Whether they had known about it or not, she could not tell, for they said nothing in reply to her question. They just hopped down and looked at her basket, their heads on one side.
“It is time to be going in,” they said. “All the others are in their bowers, getting ready.”
“But my cones,” said Mary. “The basket is not nearly full, and I shouldn’t like godmother to think I had got fewer this time.”
The wood-pigeons looked up—not to the sky, but to the nearest fir-trees. And two or three cones dropped—straight into the basket.
“It will be quite full when you come back again,” they said.