il I cry and
cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know
who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget
the garden.

"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk
about that garden. Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted
to see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want the key
dug up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in
my chair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them
open the door."

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like
stars and looked more immense than ever.

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and
I will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be
spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never
again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make
them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret
again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if
there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we
could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it
behind us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our
garden and pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our
nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds
and made it all come alive--"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will
live but the roses--"

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the
earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in
rooms if you are ill."

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling