“And therefore,” continued the Queen, “I think it is only fair that a short trial and test should be laid upon her.”
Mary began to feel rather frightened. What was the Queen going to do? Turn her into a wood-pigeon perhaps, or something of the kind. But such fears were soon laid at rest.
“It is not a severe test,” the Queen continued, and Mary felt that she was now speaking to herself directly, and that her tone was very gracious. “It is this. For one week you must keep the feather as spotless as it is now, and if at the end of that time you bring it here again—perfect and unsullied—you will have gained the prize. Do you agree?” Mary hesitated. She felt somehow a little confused. Mr Coo gave her an invisible peck.
“Say ‘Yes, I will,’” he murmured.
“I do, you mean,” whispered Mary, rather pleased to snub him. And she made another curtsey, and said in a clear voice,—
“I do.”
“Then come forward,” and Mary did so, till she was close to the pillar, on which Queen White Dove was again standing. It was not much higher than Mary herself. The Queen raised one dainty claw, and taking the end of the feather from her beak, she placed it just inside the brim of Mary’s close-fitting fur hat, or cap, where the grey feather had been on the day of Mary’s first visit to the “forest’s secret.”
“It is safe and firm,” she said. “It will be by your own fault, Mary, if it drops out or is in any way spoilt.”
And Mary curtseyed for the third time, murmuring thanks, and went back to her place, wondering to herself what was going to happen next.
The two wood-pigeons were there as before.