had crept from one tree to another and made
lovely bridges of themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on
them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but
their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy
mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown
grass, where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the
ground. It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it all
look so mysterious. Mary had thought it must be different from other
gardens which had not been left all by themselves so long; and indeed
it was different from any other place she had ever seen in her life.

"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!"

Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who
had flown to his treetop, was still as all the rest. He did not even
flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.

"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person
who has spoken in here for ten years."

She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid
of awakening some one. She was glad that there was grass under her
feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the
fairy-like gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays
and tendrils which formed them. "I wonder if they are all quite dead,"
she said. "Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn't."

If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood
was alive by looking at it, but she could only see that there were only
gray or brown sprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a
tiny leaf-bud anywhere.

But she was inside the wonderful garden and she could come through the
door under the ivy any time and she felt as if she had found a world
all her own.

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky
over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant
and soft than it was over the moor. The robin flew down from his
tree-top and hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another.
He chirped a good deal and had a very busy air, as if he were showing
her things. Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be
hundreds of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel
lonely at all. All that troubled her was her wish that she knew
whether all the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived