d wet, and green after the rains in India,"
said Mary. "And I think things grow up in a night."

"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff. "Tha'll have to
wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher here, an' push out a spike
more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that. You watch
'em."

"I am going to," answered Mary.

Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she
knew at once that the robin had come again. He was very pert and
lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one
side and looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a
question.

"Do you think he remembers me?" she said.

"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every
cabbage stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people. He's never seen a
little wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee.
Tha's no need to try to hide anything from him."

"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he
lives?" Mary inquired.

"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.

"The one where the old rose-trees are." She could not help asking,
because she wanted so much to know. "Are all the flowers dead, or do
some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?"

"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the
robin. "He's the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside it
for ten year'."

Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years
ago.

She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden
just as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother.
She was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people
to like--when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as
one of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered
wall over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she
walked up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to
her, and it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare
flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending
to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not
followed her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so
filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.

"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are