and hanging from their branches, the tangle
on the walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the stone
seats and tall flower urns standing in them.

"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper.

"Did you know about it?" asked Mary.

She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her.

"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's
to do in here."

"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand
quickly against her mouth. "Did you know about the garden?" she asked
again when she had recovered herself.

Dickon nodded.

"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered.
"Us used to wonder what it was like."

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his
round eyes looked queerly happy.

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th'
safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles o'
trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't
build here."

Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps
they were all dead."

"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!"

He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen
all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and
branches. He took a thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its
blades.

"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An'
there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's a
new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of
hard, dry gray.

Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive--quite?"

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha
had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."

"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to
be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there
are."

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was.
They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his
knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on
it. The delicatest ones