and was not the least afraid she would
not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes
and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. As she came closer
to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and
grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She
liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red
cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.

"Let us sit down on this log and look at them," she said.

They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of
his coat pocket. He untied the string and inside there were ever so
many neater and smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one.

"There's a lot o' mignonette an' poppies," he said. "Mignonette's th'
sweetest smellin' thing as grows, an' it'll grow wherever you cast it,
same as poppies will. Them as'll come up an' bloom if you just whistle
to 'em, them's th' nicest of all." He stopped and turned his head
quickly, his poppy-cheeked face lighting up.

"Where's that robin as is callin' us?" he said.

The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries,
and Mary thought she knew whose it was.

"Is it really calling us?" she asked.

"Aye," said Dickon, as if it was the most natural thing in the world,
"he's callin' some one he's friends with. That's same as sayin' 'Here
I am. Look at me. I wants a bit of a chat.' There he is in the bush.
Whose is he?"

"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows me a little," answered
Mary.

"Aye, he knows thee," said Dickon in his low voice again. "An' he
likes thee. He's took thee on. He'll tell me all about thee in a
minute."

He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement Mary had
noticed before, and then he made a sound almost like the robin's own
twitter. The robin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered
quite as if he were replying to a question.

"Aye, he's a friend o' yours," chuckled Dickon.

"Do you think he is?" cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know.
"Do you think he really likes me?"

"He wouldn't come near thee if he didn't," answered Dickon. "Birds is
rare choosers an' a robin can flout a body worse than a man. See, he's
making up to thee now. 'Cannot tha' see a chap?' he's sayin'."

And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered
and tilted as he hopped on his bush.

"Do you understand everythi