she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?"

"The servants--and of course Dr. Craven because he would get
Misselthwaite and be rich instead of poor. He daren't say so, but he
always looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had typhoid fever his face
got quite fat. I think my father wishes it, too."

"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately.

That made Colin turn and look at her again.

"Don't you?" he said.

And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were
thinking. And there was quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both of
them thinking strange things children do not usually think of.

"I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron
thing off," said Mary at last. "Did he say you were going to die?"

"No."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't whisper," Colin answered. "Perhaps he knew I hated
whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud. He said, 'The lad
might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.' It
sounded as if he was in a temper."

"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary
reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one
way or the other. "I believe Dickon would. He's always talking about
live things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill.
He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying--or looking down
at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and
they are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh
with his wide mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as red as cherries."

She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed
at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes.

"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it.
Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then we
will look at your pictures."

It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to
talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people who
lived in it on sixteen shillings a week--and the children who got fat on
the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon's mother--and the
skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on it--and about pale green
points sticking up out of the black sod. And it was all so alive that
Mary talked more than she had ever talked before--and Colin both talked
and listened as he had never done eit