at he was thinking out lectures, as he
often did. When he dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to
Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. He
stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threw out his arms
exultantly. Color glowed in his face and his strange eyes widened with
joyfulness. All at once he had realized something to the full.

"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!"

They stopped their weeding and looked at him.

"Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he
demanded.

Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could
see more things than most people could and many of them were things he
never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy. "Aye, that
we do," he answered.

Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing.

"Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once I remembered it
myself--when I looked at my hand digging with the trowel--and I had to
stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it is real! I'm
well--I'm well!"

"Aye, that th' art!" said Dickon.

"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all
over.

He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and
thought about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all
through him--a sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been
so strong that he could not help calling out.

"I shall live forever and ever and ever!" he cried grandly. "I shall
find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about
people and creatures and everything that grows--like Dickon--and I
shall never stop making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feel--I feel as
if I want to shout out something--something thankful, joyful!"

Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round
at him.

"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He
had no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with
any particular reverence.

But Colin was of an exploring mind and he knew nothing about the
Doxology.

"What is that?" he inquired.

"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff.

Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer's smile.

"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th'
skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'."

"If she says that, it must be a nice song," Colin answered. "I've
never be