sery or I'll box your ears."

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one
passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own
room.

"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find
yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as
he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after
you. I've got enough to do."

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went
and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground
her teeth.

"There was some one crying--there was--there was!" she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had
found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a
long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all
the time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the
gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

CHAPTER VII

THE KEY TO THE GARDEN

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed
immediately, and called to Martha.

"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!"

The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept
away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a
brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never
had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and
blazing; this was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle
like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there,
high, high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white
fleece. The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue
instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin. "Th' storm's over for a bit.
It does like this at this time o' th' year. It goes off in a night
like it was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come
again. That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way
off yet, but it's comin'."

"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary
said.

"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead
brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!"

"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously. In India the natives
spoke different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was
not surprised when Martha used words she did n