a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock, much
pleased. "Sometimes I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan, if you was a different
woman an' didn't talk such broad Yorkshire I've seen the times when I
should have said you was clever.'"

* * * * *

That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his
eyes in the morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it--smiled
because he felt so curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be
awake, and he turned over and stretched his limbs luxuriously. He felt
as if tight strings which had held him had loosened themselves and let
him go. He did not know that Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves
had relaxed and rested themselves. Instead of lying and staring at the
wall and wishing he had not awakened, his mind was full of the plans he
and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden and of Dickon and
his wild creatures. It was so nice to have things to think about. And he
had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard feet running
along the corridor and Mary was at the door. The next minute she was in
the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of
fresh air full of the scent of the morning.

"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!"
he cried.

She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright
with the air and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it.

"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed. "You
never saw anything so beautiful! It has _come_! I thought it had come
that other morning, but it was only coming. It is here now! It has come,
the Spring! Dickon says so!"

"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he
felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in bed.

"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and
half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!"

And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a
moment more it was opened wide and freshness and softness and scents and
birds' songs were pouring through.

"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw in long breaths
of it. That's what Dickon does when he's lying on the moor. He says he
feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and he feels as if he
could live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it."

She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she ca