hen her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling
down on to the grass and the pale green points all the time.

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see
gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben
Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things
to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of
creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come
into his garden and begin at once.

Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her
midday dinner. In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when
she put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could
not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been
actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale
green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as
cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been
smothering them.

"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking all round at her
new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they
heard her.

Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door
and slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such
bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said. "Eh!
mother will be pleased when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done
for thee."

In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had
found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion.
She had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on
it and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that look like onions?"

"They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o' spring flowers grow from
'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones
are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all
is lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole
lot of 'em planted in our bit o' garden."

"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking
possession of her.

"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says he
just whispers things out o' th' ground."

"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one
helped them?