“Do you mean—” Mary began.
“What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might
be driven over to our cottage some day and have a
bit o’ mother’s hot oat cake, an’
butter, an’ a glass o’ milk.”
It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening
in one day. To think of going over the moor in
the daylight and when the sky was blue! To think
of going into the cottage which held twelve children!
“Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?”
she asked, quite anxiously.
“Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what
a tidy woman mother is and how clean she keeps the
cottage.”
“If I went I should see your mother as well
as Dickon,” said Mary, thinking it over and
liking the idea very much. “She doesn’t
seem to be like the mothers in India.”
Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon
ended by making her feel quiet and thoughtful.
Martha stayed with her until tea-time, but they sat
in comfortable quiet and talked very little. But
just before Martha went down-stairs for the tea-tray,
Mary asked a question.
“Martha,” she said, “has the scullery-maid
had the toothache again to-day?”
Martha certainly started slightly.
“What makes thee ask that?” she said.
“Because when I waited so long for you to come
back I opened the door and walked down the corridor
to see if you were coming. And I heard that far-off
crying again, just as we heard it the other night.
There isn’t a wind to-day, so you see it couldn’t
have been the wind.”
“Eh!” said Martha restlessly. “Tha’
mustn’t go walkin’ about in corridors
an’ listenin’. Mr. Craven would be
that there angry there’s no knowin’ what
he’d do.”
“I wasn’t listening,” said Mary.
“I was just waiting for you—and I
heard it. That’s three times.”
“My word! There’s Mrs. Medlock’s
bell,” said Martha, and she almost ran out of
the room.
“It’s the strangest house any one ever
lived in,” said Mary drowsily, as she dropped
her head on the cushioned seat of the armchair near
her. Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope
had made her feel so comfortably tired that she fell
asleep.
DICKON
The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret
garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called
it when she was thinking of it. She liked the
name, and she liked still more the feeling that when
its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where
she was. It seemed almost like being shut out
of the world in some fairy place. The few books
she had read and liked had been fairy-story books,
and she had read of secret gardens in some of the
stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them
for a hundred years, which she had thought must be
rather stupid. She had no intention of going
to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake
every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was
