ing so close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he
found himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things
years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and
what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not
know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--filling
and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as
if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had
risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away. But of
course he did not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley
seemed to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright
delicate blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was
happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he
got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft
breath and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound
and released in him, very quietly.

"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over
his forehead. "I almost feel as if--I were alive!"

I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to
be able to explain how this had happened to him. Neither does any one
else yet. He did not understand at all himself--but he remembered this
strange hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he
found out quite by accident that on this very day Colin had cried out
as he went into the secret garden:

"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"

The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he
slept a new reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did
not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the
doors wide to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping and rushing
back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But,
strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes--sometimes
half-hours--when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to
lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.
Slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knew of--he was "coming alive"
with the garden.

As the golden summer changed into the deep golden autumn he went to the
Lake of Como. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his
days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the
soft thick verdure of the