The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in.  Round the
cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall
of rough stones.  Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight
and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there
planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and
herbs for his mother.  In the company of his "creatures" he did wonders
there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed.  While he dug or
weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to
Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it
wasn't for Dickon's garden.  Anything'll grow for him.  His 'taters and
cabbages is twice th' size of any one else's an' they've got a flavor
with 'em as nobody's has."

When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him.
After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that
was her quiet time.  She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on
and hear stories of the day.  She loved this time.  There were not only
vegetables in this garden.  Dickon had bought penny packages of flower
seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among
gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette
and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after
year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into
fine clumps.  The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire
because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and
hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses
of the stones were to be seen.

"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is
to be friends with 'em for sure.  They're just like th' 'creatures.' If
they're thirsty give 'em drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o'
food.  They want to live same as we do.  If they died I should feel as
if I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless."

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that
happened at Misselthwaite Manor.  At first she was only told that
"Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with
Miss Mary and that it was doing him good.  But it was not long before
it was agreed between the two children that Dickon's mother might "come
into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for
sure."

So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all
the thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze
which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned
never to reveal.  The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him,
the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his introduction to
the hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff's
angry face peering over the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant
strength, made Mrs. Sowerby's nice-looking face quite change color
several times.

"My word!" she said.  "It was a good thing that little lass came to th'
Manor.  It's been th' makin' o' her an' th' savin, o' him.  Standin' on
his feet! An' us all thinkin' he was a poor half-witted lad with not a
straight bone in him."

She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep
thinking.

"What do they make of it at th' Manor--him being so well an' cheerful
an' never complainin'?" she inquired.  "They don't know what to make of
it," answered Dickon.  "Every day as comes round his face looks
different.  It's fillin' out and doesn't look so sharp an' th' waxy
color is goin'.  But he has to do his bit o' complainin'," with a
highly entertained grin.

"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby.

Dickon chuckled.

"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened.  If the doctor
knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and
tell Mester Craven.  Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself.
He's goin' to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father
comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his room an' show him he's
as straight as other lads.  But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan
to do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off th'
scent."

Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had
finished his last sentence.

"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' their-selves I'll warrant.
They'll get a good bit o' actin' out of it an' there's nothin' children
likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad."
Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her.  His eyes
were twinkling with fun.

"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out," he
explained.  "An' he flies out at John, th' footman, for not carryin'
him careful enough.  He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an'
never lifts his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house.  An' he
grunts an' frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his chair.
Him an' Miss Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an'
complains she'll say, 'Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so
weak as that, poor Colin?'--but th' trouble is that sometimes they can
scarce keep from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the
garden they laugh till they've no breath left to laugh with.  An' they
have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the
gardeners from hearin', if any of, 'em's about."

"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still
laughing herself.  "Good healthy child laughin's better than pills any
day o' th' year.  That pair'll plump up for sure."

"They are plumpin' up," said Dickon.  "They're that hungry they don't
know how to get enough to eat without makin' talk.  Mester Colin says
if he keeps sendin' for more food they won't believe he's an invalid at
all.  Miss Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if
she goes hungry she'll get thin an' they mun both get fat at once."

Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty
that she quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and
Dickon laughed with her.

"I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said when she could speak.
"I've thought of a way to help 'em. When tha' goes to 'em in th'
mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new milk an' I'll bake 'em a
crusty cottage loaf or some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as you
children like.  Nothin's so good as fresh milk an' bread.  Then they
could take off th' edge o' their hunger while they were in their garden
an' th, fine food they get indoors 'ud polish off th' corners."

"Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what a wonder tha' art! Tha'
always sees a way out o' things.  They was quite in a pother yesterday.
They didn't see how they was to manage without orderin' up more
food--they felt that empty inside."

"They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an' health's comin' back to both
of 'em. Children like that feels like young wolves an' food's flesh an'
blood to 'em," said Mrs. Sowerby.  Then she smiled Dickon's own curving
smile.  "Eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves for sure," she said.

She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creature--and she
had never been more so than when she said their "play actin'" would be
their joy.  Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources
of entertainment.  The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had
been unconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse and
then by Dr. Craven himself.

"Your appetite.  Is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had
said one day.  "You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed
with you."

"Nothing disagrees with me now" replied Colin, and then seeing the
nurse looking at him curiously he suddenly remembered that perhaps he
ought not to appear too well just yet.  "At least things don't so often
disagree with me.  It's the fresh air."

"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified
expression.  "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it."

"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away.  "As if she
thought there must be something to find out."

"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin.  "No one must begin
to find out yet." When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled,
also.  He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance.

"You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested.  "Where do you
go?"

Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion.

"I will not let any one know where I go," he answered.  "I go to a
place I like.  Every one has orders to keep out of the way.  I won't be
watched and stared at.  You know that!"

"You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harm--I
do not think so.  The nurse says that you eat much more than you have
ever done before."

"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is
an unnatural appetite."

"I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you," said Dr.
Craven.  "You are gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better."

"Perhaps--perhaps I am bloated and feverish," said Colin, assuming a
discouraging air of gloom.  "People who are not going to live are
often--different." Dr. Craven shook his head.  He was holding Colin's
wrist and he pushed up his sleeve and felt his arm.

"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully, "and such flesh as you
have gained is healthy.  If you can keep this up, my boy, we need not
talk of dying.  Your father will be happy to hear of this remarkable
improvement."

"I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth fiercely.  "It will only
disappoint him if I get worse again--and I may get worse this very
night.  I might have a raging fever.  I feel as if I might be beginning
to have one now.  I won't have letters written to my father--I won't--I
won't!  You are making me angry and you know that is bad for me.  I
feel hot already.  I hate being written about and being talked over as
much as I hate being stared at!"

"Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him.  "Nothing shall be written
without your permission.  You are too sensitive about things.  You must
not undo the good which has been done."

He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse
he privately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned
to the patient.

"The boy is extraordinarily better," he said.  "His advance seems
almost abnormal.  But of course he is doing now of his own free will
what we could not make him do before.  Still, he excites himself very
easily and nothing must be said to irritate him." Mary and Colin were
much alarmed and talked together anxiously.  From this time dated their
plan of "play actin'."

"I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said Colin regretfully.  "I don't
want to have one and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself into a
big one.  Perhaps I couldn't have one at all.  That lump doesn't come
in my throat now and I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible
ones.  But if they talk about writing to my father I shall have to do
something."

He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible
to carry out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an
amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast
of home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and
clotted cream.  Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found
themselves at the table--particularly if there were delicate slices of
sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver
cover--they would look into each other's eyes in desperation.

"I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always
ended by saying.  "We can send away some of the lunch and a great deal
of the dinner."

But they never found they could send away anything and the highly
polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened
much comment.

"I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish the slices of ham were
thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for any one."

"It's enough for a person who is going to die," answered Mary when
first she heard this, "but it's not enough for a person who is going to
live.  I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh
heather and gorse smells from the moor come pouring in at the open
window."

The morning that Dickon--after they had been enjoying themselves in the
garden for about two hours--went behind a big rosebush and brought
forth two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk
with cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made
currant buns folded in a clean blue and white napkin, buns so carefully
tucked in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprised
joyfulness.  What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of! What
a kind, clever woman she must be! How good the buns were! And what
delicious fresh milk!

"Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin.  "It makes her
think of ways to do things--nice things.  She is a Magic person.  Tell
her we are grateful, Dickon--extremely grateful." He was given to using
rather grown-up phrases at times.  He enjoyed them.  He liked this so
much that he improved upon it.

"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme."

And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with
buns and drank milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner
of any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and
breathing in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours
behind him.

This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind.
They actually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen
people to provide food for she might not have enough to satisfy two
extra appetites every day.  So they asked her to let them send some of
their shillings to buy things.

Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park
outside the garden where Mary had first found him piping to the wild
creatures there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort
of tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it.  Roasted
eggs were a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes with salt
and fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king--besides being
deliciously satisfying.  You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat
as many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of
the mouths of fourteen people.

Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under
the plum-tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after
its brief blossom-time was ended.  After the ceremony Colin always took
his walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly
found power at intervals.  Each day he grew stronger and could walk
more steadily and cover more ground.  And each day his belief in the
Magic grew stronger--as well it might.  He tried one experiment after
another as he felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon who
showed him the best things of all.

"Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite
for mother an' near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth.  He's the
strongest chap on th' moor.  He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump
higher than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther.  He's gone all
th' way to Scotland for th' sports some years.  He's knowed me ever
since I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him some
questions.  Th' gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee,
Mester Colin, and I says, 'How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out
that way, Bob? Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?'
An' he says 'Well, yes, lad, I did.  A strong man in a show that came
to Thwaite once showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every
muscle in my body.  An' I says, 'Could a delicate chap make himself
stronger with 'em, Bob?' an' he laughed an' says, 'Art tha' th'
delicate chap?' an' I says, 'No, but I knows a young gentleman that's
gettin' well of a long illness an' I wish I knowed some o' them tricks
to tell him about.' I didn't say no names an' he didn't ask none.  He's
friendly same as I said an' he stood up an' showed me good-natured
like, an' I imitated what he did till I knowed it by heart."

Colin had been listening excitedly.

"Can you show me?" he cried.  "Will you?"

"Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up.  "But he says tha' mun
do 'em gentle at first an' be careful not to tire thysel'. Rest in
between times an' take deep breaths an' don't overdo."

"I'll be careful," said Colin.  "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the
most Magic boy in the world!"

Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully
practical but simple series of muscle exercises.  Colin watched them
with widening eyes.  He could do a few while he was sitting down.
Presently he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied
feet.  Mary began to do them also.  Soot, who was watching the
performance, became much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about
restlessly because he could not do them too.

From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as
the Magic was.  It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more
of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that
but for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he
arrived they would have been lost.  But the little oven in the hollow
and Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and
the nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again.  You can trifle with
your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the
brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and
oatcakes and buns and heather honey and clotted cream.

"They are eating next to nothing," said the nurse.  "They'll die of
starvation if they can't be persuaded to take some nourishment.  And
yet see how they look."

"Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly.  "Eh! I'm moithered to
death with them.  They're a pair of young Satans.  Bursting their
jackets one day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals
Cook can tempt them with.  Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and
bread sauce did they set a fork into yesterday--and the poor woman fair
invented a pudding for them--and back it's sent.  She almost cried.
She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve themselves into their
graves."

Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully, He wore an
extremely worried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed
him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to
look at--but it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa
and examined him.  He had been called to London on business and had not
seen the boy for nearly two weeks.  When young things begin to gain
health they gain it rapidly.  The waxen tinge had left, Colins skin and
a warm rose showed through it; his beautiful eyes were clear and the
hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out.  His
once dark, heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily
from his forehead and were soft and warm with life.  His lips were
fuller and of a normal color.  In fact as an imitation of a boy who was
a confirmed invalid he was a disgraceful sight.  Dr. Craven held his
chin in his hand and thought him over.

"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything," he said.  "That will
not do.  You will lose all you have gained--and you have gained
amazingly.  You ate so well a short time ago."

"I told you it was an unnatural appetite," answered Colin.

Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer
sound which she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost
choking.

"What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her.

Mary became quite severe in her manner.

"It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with
reproachful dignity, "and it got into my throat."

"But," she said afterward to Colin, "I couldn't stop myself.  It just
burst out because all at once I couldn't help remembering that last big
potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through
that thick lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it."

"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr.
Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.

"There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the
trees," Mrs. Medlock answered.  "They stay out in the grounds all day
and see no one but each other.  And if they want anything different to
eat from what's sent up to them they need only ask for it."

"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with
them we need not disturb ourselves.  The boy is a new creature."

"So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock.  "She's begun to be downright
pretty since she's filled out and lost her ugly little sour look.  Her
hair's grown thick and healthy looking and she's got a bright color.
The glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and
Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones.  Perhaps
they're growing fat on that."

"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven.  "Let them laugh."

In the evenings, while tending his own garden, Dickon begins to tell his mother, Susan Sowerby, about the new developments at the manor. The three children have agreed to let Mrs. Sowerby in on their jealously guarded secret because they regard her as being at least as trustworthy as Dickon. Dickon also tells his mother of the elaborate charade being carried on by Mary and Colin: these two must do a great deal of absurd play-acting so that Colin's improvement will remain a secret. They have, however, encountered a bit of a problem: they have both developed ravenous appetites, but are afraid to eat too much at the manor, lest they attract suspicion. Mrs Sowerby, much amused by this predicament, decides to send them fresh milk and bread to take the edge off of their hunger. Later, Mary and Colin send Mrs. Sowerby some of their pocket money so that she might procure fresh potatoes and eggs for them; they then roast these on the moor. The three children continue their "experiments" with magic: each day, they sit in a prayer-circle while Colin sermonizes to them about the healing powers of magic. Dickon asks Yorkshire's champion wrestler for an exercise program to make Colin stronger, and the trio begin to follow this program religiously. Colin grows healthier and more vigorous with astonishing speed&mdashmaking it all the more difficult to keep up his charade of illness


And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed
new miracles.  In the robin's nest there were Eggs and the robin's mate
sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and
careful wings.  At first she was very nervous and the robin himself was
indignantly watchful.  Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown
corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some
mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little
pair that in the garden there was nothing which was not quite like
themselves--nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what
was happening to them--the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking
beauty and solemnity of Eggs.  If there had been one person in that
garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if
an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and
crash through space and come to an end--if there had been even one who
did not feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness
even in that golden springtime air.  But they all knew it and felt it
and the robin and his mate knew they knew it.

At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety.  For some
mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon.  The first moment
he set his dew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger
but a sort of robin without beak or feathers.  He could speak robin
(which is a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for any other).
To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman.
Dickon always spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he
used when he spoke to humans did not matter in the least.  The robin
thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were not
intelligent enough to understand feathered speech.  His movements also
were robin.  They never startled one by being sudden enough to seem
dangerous or threatening.  Any robin could understand Dickon, so his
presence was not even disturbing.

But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other
two.  In the first place the boy creature did not come into the garden
on his legs.  He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of
wild animals were thrown over him.  That in itself was doubtful.  Then
when he began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer
unaccustomed way and the others seemed to have to help him.  The robin
used to secrete himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head
tilted first on one side and then on the other.  He thought that the
slow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do.
When cats are preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very
slowly.  The robin talked this over with his mate a great deal for a
few days but after that he decided not to speak of the subject because
her terror was so great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the
Eggs.

When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it
was an immense relief.  But for a long time--or it seemed a long time
to the robin--he was a source of some anxiety.  He did not act as the
other humans did.  He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of
sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a
disconcerting manner to begin again.

One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to
learn to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing.
He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to
rest.  So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or
rather to walk.  He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her
that the Eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way after
they were fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly
interested and derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the
edge of her nest--though she always thought that the Eggs would be much
cleverer and learn more quickly.  But then she said indulgently that
humans were always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them
never seemed really to learn to fly at all.  You never met them in the
air or on tree-tops.

After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all
three of the children at times did unusual things.  They would stand
under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way
which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down.  They went
through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never
able to explain to his mate what they were doing or tying to do.  He
could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in
such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was
doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions
were not of a dangerous nature.  Of course neither the robin nor his
mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his
exercises for making the muscles stand out like lumps.  Robins are not
like human beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first
and so they develop themselves in a natural manner.  If you have to fly
about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied
(atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like
the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace
and content.  Fears for the Eggs became things of the past.  Knowing
that your Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and
the fact that you could watch so many curious things going on made
setting a most entertaining occupation.  On wet days the Eggs' mother
sometimes felt even a little dull because the children did not come
into the garden.

But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were
dull.  One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin
was beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on
his sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an
inspiration.

"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all
my body are so full of Magic that I can't keep them still.  They want
to be doing things all the time.  Do you know that when I waken in the
morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting
outside and everything seems just shouting for joy--even the trees and
things we can't really hear--I feel as if I must jump out of bed and
shout myself.  If I did it, just think what would happen!"

Mary giggled inordinately.

"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and
they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor,"
she said.

Colin giggled himself.  He could see how they would all look--how
horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright.

"I wish my father would come home," he said.  "I want to tell him
myself.  I'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this
much longer.  I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I
look too different.  I wish it wasn't raining today."

It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration.

"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are
in this house?"

"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered.

"There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary.  "And one
rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them.  No one ever
knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out.  I lost my way when I
was coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor.  That was
the second time I heard you crying."

Colin started up on his sofa.

"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said.  "It sounds almost like a
secret garden.  Suppose we go and look at them.  Wheel me in my chair
and nobody would know we went."

"That's what I was thinking," said Mary.  "No one would dare to follow
us.  There are galleries where you could run.  We could do our
exercises.  There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full
of ivory elephants.  There are all sorts of rooms."

"Ring the bell," said Colin.

When the nurse came in he gave his orders.

"I want my chair," he said.  "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the
part of the house which is not used.  John can push me as far as the
picture-gallery because there are some stairs.  Then he must go away
and leave us alone until I send for him again."

Rainy days lost their terrors that morning.  When the footman had
wheeled the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in
obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted.  As
soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his
own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair.

"I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said,
"and then I am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's
exercises."

And they did all these things and many others.  They looked at the
portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and
holding the parrot on her finger.

"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations.  They lived a long time
ago.  That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great,
great aunts.  She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but
as you looked when you came here.  Now you are a great deal fatter and
better looking."

"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed.

They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory
elephants.  They found the rose-colored brocade boudoir and the hole in
the cushion the mouse had left, but the mice had grown up and run away
and the hole was empty.  They saw more rooms and made more discoveries
than Mary had made on her first pilgrimage.  They found new corridors
and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and
weird old things they did not know the use of.  It was a curiously
entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same
house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were
miles away from them was a fascinating thing.

"I'm glad we came," Colin said.  "I never knew I lived in such a big
queer old place.  I like it.  We will ramble about every rainy day.  We
shall always be finding new queer corners and things."

That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that
when they returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the
luncheon away untouched.

When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs she slapped it down on the
kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly
polished dishes and plates.

"Look at that!" she said.  "This is a house of mystery, and those two
children are the greatest mysteries in it."

"If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John,
"there'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day as he did
a month ago.  I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of
doing my muscles an injury."

That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's
room.  She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because
she thought the change might have been made by chance.  She said
nothing today but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the
mantel.  She could look at it because the curtain had been drawn aside.
That was the change she noticed.

"I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared
a few minutes.  "I always know when you want me to tell you something.
You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back.  I am going to keep it
like that."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing.  I
wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the
Magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I
couldn't lie still.  I got up and looked out of the window.  The room
was quite light and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and
somehow that made me go and pull the cord.  She looked right down at me
as if she were laughing because she was glad I was standing there.  It
made me like to look at her.  I want to see her laughing like that all
the time.  I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."

"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps
you are her ghost made into a boy."

That idea seemed to impress Colin.  He thought it over and then
answered her slowly.

"If I were her ghost--my father would be fond of me."

"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary.

"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me.  If he grew fond of
me I think I should tell him about the Magic.  It might make him more
cheerful."

The first half of this chapter concerns itself with the observations of the robin redbreast, which is watching all of the children's activities in the garden. He and his mate are sitting on their nest, waiting for their eggs to hatch, throughout the early part of spring. Colin and Mary are obliged to stay indoors on rainy days. At Mary's suggestion, they begin exploring the hundred rooms of the manor house. They remark that Mary no longer looks like the portrait of the girl and her pet parrot: she has been utterly transformed by the garden and the springtime, and is now quite pretty. Mary notices that Colin has drawn back the rose-colored curtain in his room so that the portrait of his mother is now visible. Colin says that "Magic filled his room" two nights before, and thus compelled him to pull back the curtain. Now that he is healthy, he feels that her laughter is meant for him, as a kind of unspoken blessing. Mary remarks that she has often thought that Colin is a great deal like his mother; it is as though he is "her ghost made into a boy. Colin is greatly moved by this idea, because it suggests that his father might become fond of him


Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing.  After the morning's
incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.

"I like to do it," he explained, "because when I grow up and make great
scientific discoveries I shall be obliged to lecture about them and so
this is practise.  I can only give short lectures now because I am very
young, and besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he were in church
and he would go to sleep."

"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up
an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap can answer him back.  I
wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel' sometimes."

But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes
on him and kept them there.  He looked him over with critical
affection.  It was not so much the lecture which interested him as the
legs which looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head
which held itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks
which had filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold
the light he remembered in another pair.  Sometimes when Colin felt
Ben's earnest gaze meant that he was much impressed he wondered what he
was reflecting on and once when he had seemed quite entranced he
questioned him.

"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked.

"I was thinkin'" answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's, gone up three or
four pound this week.  I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders.
I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales."

"It's the Magic and--and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said
Colin.  "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded."

That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture.  When he came he
was ruddy with running and his funny face looked more twinkling than
usual.  As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains they
fell to work.  They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking
rain.  The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for
the weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves
which must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold.  Colin
was as good at weeding as any one in these days and he could lecture
while he was doing it.  "The Magic works best when you work, yourself,"
he said this morning.  "You can feel it in your bones and muscles.  I
am going to read books about bones and muscles, but I am going to write
a book about Magic.  I am making it up now.  I keep finding out things."

It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his
trowel and stood up on his feet.  He had been silent for several
minutes and they had seen that 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 been in a church myself.  I was always too ill.  Sing it, Dickon.
I want to hear it."

Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it.  He understood what
Colin felt better than Colin did himself.  He understood by a sort of
instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding.  He
pulled off his cap and looked round still smiling.

"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha',
Ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows."

Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair
as he watched Dickon intently.  Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his
knees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look
on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this
remarkable thing.

Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes and began to sing in
quite a simple matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice:

         "Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
         Praise Him all creatures here below,
         Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host,
         Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
                     Amen."

When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with
his jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on
Colin.  Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative.

"It is a very nice song," he said.  "I like it.  Perhaps it means just
what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic."
He stopped and thought in a puzzled way.  "Perhaps they are both the
same thing.  How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it
again, Dickon.  Let us try, Mary.  I want to sing it, too.  It's my
song.  How does it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?"

And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as
musically as they could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and
beautiful--and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared
his throat and at the third line he joined in with such vigor that it
seemed almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed
that the very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he
found out that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he
was staring and winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet.

"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I
may change my mind i' time.  I should say tha'd gone up five pound this
week Mester Colin--five on 'em!"

Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his
attention and his expression had become a startled one.

"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly.  "Who is it?"

The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had
entered.  She had come in with the last line of their song and she had
stood still listening and looking at them.  With the ivy behind her,
the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue
cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was
rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books.  She
had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in--all
of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower
that was in bloom.  Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them
felt that she was an intruder at all.  Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps.

"It's mother--that's who it is!" he cried and went across the grass at
a run.

Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him.  They both
felt their pulses beat faster.

"It's mother!" Dickon said again when they met halfway.  "I knowed tha'
wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid."

Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his
eyes quite devoured her face.

"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and
the secret garden.  I'd never wanted to see any one or anything before."

The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her
own.  She flushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed
to sweep over her eyes.

"Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously.  "Eh! dear lad!" as if she
had not known she were going to say it.  She did not say, "Mester
Colin," but just "dear lad" quite suddenly.  She might have said it to
Dickon in the same way if she had seen something in his face which
touched her.  Colin liked it.

"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked.  She put her hand
on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes.  "Aye, that I am!"
she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my heart jump."

"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my
father like me?"

"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a
soft quick pat.  "He mun come home--he mun come home."

"Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff, getting close to her.  "Look at
th' lad's legs, wilt tha'? They was like drumsticks i' stockin' two
month' ago--an' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knock-kneed
both at th' same time.  Look at 'em now!"

Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.

"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said.  "Let
him go on playin' an' workin' in the garden an' eatin' hearty an'
drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i'
Yorkshire, thank God for it."

She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little
face over in a motherly fashion.

"An' thee, too!" she said.  "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our
'Lisabeth Ellen.  I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too.  Our Martha
told me as Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty woman.  Tha'lt be like a
blush rose when tha' grows up, my little lass, bless thee."

She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and
described the plain sallow child she had said that she had no
confidence whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard.  "It doesn't stand
to reason that a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou' little
lass," she had added obstinately.

Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face.  She
had only known that she looked "different" and seemed to have a great
deal more hair and that it was growing very fast.  But remembering her
pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear
that she might some day look like her.

Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole
story of it and shown every bush and tree which had come alive.  Colin
walked on one side of her and Mary on the other.  Each of them kept
looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the
delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling.
It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his
"creatures." She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if
they were children.  Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her
and flew upon her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her
about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a
motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.

"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but
I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o'
legs," she said.

It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland
cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic.

"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about
Indian fakirs.  "I do hope you do."

"That I do, lad," she answered.  "I never knowed it by that name but
what does th' name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i'
France an' a different one i' Germany.  Th' same thing as set th' seeds
swellin' an' th' sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good
Thing.  It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called
out of our names.  Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless
thee.  It goes on makin' worlds by th' million--worlds like us.  Never
thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full
of it--an' call it what tha' likes.  Tha' wert singin' to it when I
come into th' garden."

"I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at
her.  "Suddenly I felt how different I was--how strong my arms and legs
were, you know--and how I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and
wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen."

"Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology.  It would ha' listened
to anything tha'd sung.  It was th' joy that mattered.  Eh! lad,
lad--what's names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick
soft pat again.

She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and
when the hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding
place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour
their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites.  She was
full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things.  She told
them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words.  She laughed
as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing
difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful
invalid.

"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are
together," explained Colin.  "And it doesn't sound ill at all.  We try
to choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever."

"There's one thing that comes into my mind so often," said Mary, "and I
can scarcely ever hold in when I think of it suddenly.  I keep thinking
suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon.  It isn't
like one yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and suppose some
morning it should look like one--what should we do!"

"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do,"
said Susan Sowerby.  "But tha' won't have to keep it up much longer.
Mester Craven'll come home."

"Do you think he will?" asked Colin.  "Why?"

Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.

"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told
him in tha' own way," she said.  "Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it."

"I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin.  "I think about
different ways every day, I think now I just want to run into his
room." "That'd be a fine start for him," said Susan Sowerby.  "I'd like
to see his face, lad.  I would that! He mun come back--that he mun."

One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her
cottage.  They planned it all.  They were to drive over the moor and
lunch out of doors among the heather.  They would see all the twelve
children and Dickon's garden and would not come back until they were
tired.

Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to the house and Mrs. Medlock.
It was time for Colin to be wheeled back also.  But before he got into
his chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with
a kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold
of her blue cloak and held it fast.

"You are just what I--what I wanted," he said.  "I wish you were my
mother--as well as Dickon's!"

All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms
close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been
Dickon's brother.  The quick mist swept over her eyes.

"Eh! dear lad!" she said.  "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden,
I do believe.  She couldna' keep out of it.  Thy father mun come back
to thee--he mun!"

While Colin is lecturing in the garden, Ben Weatherstaff marvels at how strong he has become, and at how much he looks like his mother. Colin says that his experiment has succeeded, and that he intends to write a book about Magic quite soon. Suddenly overwhelmed by the miracle of his own health, he leaps up and shouts that he "shall live forever and ever and ever. Ben Weatherstaff suggests that Colin sing the Doxology  to express his joy and thankfulness. Dickon tells them that he and his mother believe that the skylarks themselves sing this hymn, which runs: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Colin immediately likes the song, and remarks that it means precisely what he does when he says that he is thankful to the Magic; perhaps God and Magic "are the same thing. Suddenly, Mrs. Sowerby appears at the garden door, and Dickon immediately runs to her. She is a beautiful woman with gentle, all-encompassing eyes; she wears a long blue cloak that appears very picturesque in the dappled sunlight. She, too, is taken aback by how much Colin looks like his mother. Mrs. Sowerby is full of affection for him, and calls Colin "lad" as if he were her own child. She also embraces Mary, exclaims of her prettiness, and compares her to one of her own daughters. The children show Mrs. Sowerby every part of the secret garden; Colin and Mary are irresistibly drawn to the "warm, supported feeling" that she inspires in both of them. Colin asks her if she believes in Magic, and she ardently replies that she does, although she doesn't call it by that name. For Mrs. Sowerby, it does not matter what its proper name is: it is merely "the Big Good Thing," the "Joy Maker. The group vows to make a visit to the Sowerbys' cottage. Mrs. Sowerby says that Master Craven must come home soon, so that he might see the dramatic change in his son. Colin is very touched, and says that he wishes that she were his mother as well as Dickon's. She embraces him and tells him that his own mother is present in the garden.

The rather odd interlude at the beginning of Chapter XXV, in which we observe the activities of the children from the point of view of the robin, provides the reader with indisputable proof that the robin redbreast is sentient, or conscious, with a mind of its own. In this way the narrator attempts to justify the personification of the natural world  that occurs throughout the novel. The long-delayed introduction of Susan Sowerby is meant to fill the reader with the same eagerness and anticipation that Colin and Mary suffer. This is borne out by the fact that she remains undescribed until Colin and Mary see her; that is, we are to take her exchanges with Dickon in Chapter XXIV as yet another story of her. Since all Mary and Colin have had of her is story until Chapter XXVI, the reader is put in their position. Mrs. Sowerby appears to be aligned with the idea of motherhood itself: she adopts Colin and Mary on sight, and begins talking to them as though they were her own children. She lends them "a warm, supported feeling" unfamiliar to both of the motherless children&mdashthis, of course, is the feeling of being mothered. Mrs. Sowerby's way with children is presented as being uncanny: she is a "child charmer," as Dickon is an animal charmer. The narrator remarks, "It seemed as if she understood them  the way Dickon understood his 'creatures'. Mrs. Sowerby's blue cloak seems to align her with the Virgin Mother of Catholic symbology, who is always depicted as wearing a blue cloak; interestingly, Dickon's father goes entirely unmentioned in the novel. While the children's singing of the Doxology adds to the Christian associations of Magic, Mrs. Sowerby's talk on the nature of Magic suggest that Hodgson Burnett wishes it to be non-denominational. Susan says that it doesn't matter what name you call this force&mdashit is the life principle, which makes the flowers grow, and makes Colin well, and is responsible for all new lives It is a creator, of some kind, and all it wants is our joy. It is up to the individual reader to decide, of course, whether the idea of Magic can be disassociated from its heavily Christian Scientist underpinnings. The Magic is presented here as being extremely fertile, and is thus linked with the maternal person of Mrs. Sowerby and, by way of the secret garden, with the late Mistress Craven. By contrast, the stagnant world of the manor house is linked with Master Craven. Both Mary and Mrs. Sowerby compare Colin to his mother; it is as though he were "her spirit made into a boy. She therefore goes on living in him, and in the garden, as Mrs. Sowerby suggests. Colin's decision to uncover the portrait can thus be linked to both his own and his mother's "rebirth


In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have
been discovered.  In the last century more amazing things were found
out than in any century before.  In this new century hundreds of things
still more astounding will be brought to light.  At first people refuse
to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to
hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and
all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.  One of the
new things people began to find out in the last century was that
thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as
good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.  To let a sad
thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a
scarlet fever germ get into your body.  If you let it stay there after
it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.

So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about
her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to
be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced,
sickly, bored and wretched child.  Circumstances, however, were very
kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it.  They began to push
her about for her own good.  When her mind gradually filled itself with
robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed
old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime
and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor
boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable
thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow
and tired.

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his
fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and
reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical
half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and
the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand
upon his feet if he tried to do it.  When new beautiful thoughts began
to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his
blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like
a flood.  His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and
there was nothing weird about it at all.  Much more surprising things
can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought
comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it
out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one.  Two things
cannot be in one place.

         "Where, you tend a rose, my lad,
         A thistle cannot grow."

While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming
alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away
beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains
of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind
filled with dark and heart-broken thinking.  He had not been
courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place
of the dark ones.  He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he
had lain on mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming
all about him and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought
them.  A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and
he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused
obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through.  He had
forgotten and deserted his home and his duties.  When he traveled
about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong
done to other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him
with gloom.  Most strangers thought he must be either half mad or a man
with some hidden crime on his soul.  He, was a tall man with a drawn
face and crooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotel
registers was, "Archibald Craven, Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire,
England."

He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his
study and told her she might have her "bit of earth." He had been in
the most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere
more than a few days.  He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots.
He had been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and
had looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them
with such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born.

But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he
realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had
happened.  He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he
had been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted, any
man's soul out of shadow.  He had walked a long way and it had not
lifted his.  But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down
to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream.  It was a clear little stream
which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious
damp greenness.  Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low
laughter as it bubbled over and round stones.  He saw birds come and
dip their heads to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away.
It seemed like a thing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness
seem deeper.  The valley was very, very still.

As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven
gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the
valley itself.  He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not.
He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things
growing at its edge.  There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots
growing 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 hills and tramped until he was tired so that
he might sleep.  But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he
knew, and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him.

"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger."

It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when
his thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too.
He began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home.
Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what
he should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed
again and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it
slept and, the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.
He shrank from it.

One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon
was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver.  The
stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not
go into the villa he lived in.  He walked down to a little bowered
terrace at the water's edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the
heavenly scents of the night.  He felt the strange calmness stealing
over him and it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep.

He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his
dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming.  He
remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought
he was.  He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the
late roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he
heard a voice calling.  It was sweet and clear and happy and far away.
It seemed very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at
his very side.

"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer
than before, "Archie! Archie!"

He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled.  It was such a real
voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it.

"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered.  "Lilias! where are you?"

"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute.  "In
the garden!"

And then the dream ended.  But he did not awaken.  He slept soundly and
sweetly all through the lovely night.  When he did awake at last it was
brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him.  He was an
Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa
were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign
master might do.  No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or
where he would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or
lie in the boat on the lake all night.  The man held a salver with some
letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them.  When
he had gone away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand
and looking at the lake.  His strange calm was still upon him and
something more--a lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done
had not happened as he thought--as if something had changed.  He was
remembering the dream--the real--real dream.

"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself.  "In the garden! But
the door is locked and the key is buried deep."

When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one
lying at the top of the rest was an English letter and came from
Yorkshire.  It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a
hand he knew.  He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the
first words attracted his attention at once.

"Dear Sir:

I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you once on the moor.  It
was about Miss Mary I spoke.  I will make bold to speak again.  Please,
sir, I would come home if I was you.  I think you would be glad to come
and--if you will excuse me, sir--I think your lady would ask you to
come if she was here.

                      Your obedient servant,
                      Susan Sowerby."

Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope.
He kept thinking about the dream.

"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said.  "Yes, I'll go at once."

And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to
prepare for his return to England.

In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad
journey he found himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in
all the ten years past.  During those years he had only wished to
forget him.  Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories
of him constantly drifted into his mind.  He remembered the black days
when he had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the
mother was dead.  He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to
look at it at last it had been, such a weak wretched thing that
everyone had been sure it would die in a few days.  But to the surprise
of those who took care of it the days passed and it lived and then
everyone believed it would be a deformed and crippled creature.

He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father
at all.  He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had
shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his
own misery.  The first time after a year's absence he returned to
Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly and
indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes
round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had
adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as
death.  After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep,
and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a
vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper.  He could only be kept from
furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail.

All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled
him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming
alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and
deeply.

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself.
"Ten years is a long time.  It may be too late to do anything--quite
too late.  What have I been thinking of!"

Of course this was the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even
Colin could have told him that.  But he knew nothing of Magic--either
black or white.  This he had yet to learn.  He wondered if Susan
Sowerby had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly
creature had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill.  If
he had not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken
possession of him he would have been more wretched than ever.  But the
calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it.  Instead of giving
way to thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe
in better things.

"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good
and control him?" he thought.  "I will go and see her on my way to
Misselthwaite."

But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the
cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a
group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him
that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the
morning to help a woman who had a new baby.  "Our Dickon," they
volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where
he went several days each week.

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round
red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he
awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot.  He smiled at
their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and
gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest.

"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for
each of, you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away,
leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing.
Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been
sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and
sky and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing,
nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six
hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering
to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed
with the brocaded hangings.  Was it possible that perhaps he might find
him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his
shrinking from him?  How real that dream had been--how wonderful and
clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the
garden!"

"I will try to find the key," he said.  "I will try to open the door.
I must--though I don't know why."

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the
usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to
the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher.  He went
into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock.  She came to him somewhat
excited and curious and flustered.

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.  "Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock
answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner of speaking."

"Worse?" he suggested.

Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor
the nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

"Why is that?"

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be
changing for the worse.  His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and
his ways--"

"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master, asked, knitting his
brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir.  He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with
what he used to be.  He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began
to eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and
the meals were sent back just as they used to be.  You never knew, sir,
perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken.  The
things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave
a body trembling like a leaf.  He'd throw himself into such a state
that Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him.  Well,
sir, just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he
suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan
Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair.  He took a fancy to
both Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if
you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until
night."

"How does he look?" was the next question.

"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on
flesh--but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat.  He laughs sometimes
in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary.  He never used to laugh
at all.  Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him.
He never was as puzzled in his life."

"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked.

"In the garden, sir.  He's always in the garden--though not a human
creature is allowed to go near for fear they'll look at him."

Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.

"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he
stood and repeated it again and again.  "In the garden!"

He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was
standing in and when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went
out of the room.  He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door
in the shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds.  The
fountain was playing now and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn
flowers.  He crossed the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by the
ivied walls.  He did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on
the path.  He felt as if he were being drawn back to the place he had
so long forsaken, and he did not know why.  As he drew near to it his
step became still more slow.  He knew where the door was even though
the ivy hung thick over it--but he did not know exactly where it
lay--that buried key.

So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment
after he had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were
walking in a dream.

The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs,
no human being had passed that portal for ten lonely years--and yet
inside the garden there were sounds.  They were the sounds of running
scuffling feet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they
were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices--exclamations and
smothered joyous cries.  It seemed actually like the laughter of young
things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to
be heard but who in a moment or so--as their excitement mounted--would
burst forth.  What in heaven's name was he dreaming of--what in
heaven's name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he
heard things which were not for human ears? Was it that the far clear
voice had meant?

And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds
forgot to hush themselves.  The feet ran faster and faster--they were
nearing the garden door--there was quick strong young breathing and a
wild outbreak of laughing shows which could not be contained--and the
door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back,
and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the
outsider, dashed almost into his arms.

Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a
result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to
look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath.

He was a tall boy and a handsome one.  He was glowing with life and his
running had sent splendid color leaping to his face.  He threw the
thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray
eyes--eyes full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a
fringe.  It was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath.
"Who--What? Who!" he stammered.

This was not what Colin had expected--this was not what he had planned.
He had never thought of such a meeting.  And yet to come dashing
out--winning a race--perhaps it was even better.  He drew himself up to
his very tallest.  Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed
through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look
taller than he had ever looked before--inches taller.

"Father," he said, "I'm Colin.  You can't believe it.  I scarcely can
myself.  I'm Colin."

Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he
said hurriedly:

"In the garden! In the garden!"

"Yes," hurried on Colin.  "It was the garden that did it--and Mary and
Dickon and the creatures--and the Magic.  No one knows.  We kept it to
tell you when you came.  I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race.  I'm
going to be an athlete."

He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words
tumbling over each other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook
with unbelieving joy.

Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm.

"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended.  "Aren't you glad?  I'm going to
live forever and ever and ever!"

Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him
still.  He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.

"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last.  "And tell me all
about it."

And so they led him in.

The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue
and flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies
standing together--lilies which were white or white and ruby.  He
remembered well when the first of them had been planted that just at
this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves.
Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening
the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel that one, stood in an
embowered temple of gold.  The newcomer stood silent just as the
children had done when they came into its grayness.  He looked round
and round.

"I thought it would be dead," he said.

"Mary thought so at first," said Colin.  "But it came alive."

Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand
while he told the story.

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought,
as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion.  Mystery and Magic and
wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting--the coming of the
spring--the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah
to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face.  The odd
companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept.
The listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears
came into his eyes when he was not laughing.  The Athlete, the
Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy
young human thing.

"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it need not be a secret any
more.  I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see
me--but I am never going to get into the chair again.  I shall walk
back with you, Father--to the house."

Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on
this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen
and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a
glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most
dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present
generation actually took place.  One of the windows looking upon the
courtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn.  Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben
had come from the gardens, hoped that he might have caught sight of his
master and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin.

"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked.

Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back
of his hand.

"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock.

"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff.  "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I
could sup up another mug of it."

"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her
excitement.

"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.

"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each
other?"

"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' stepladder
lookin, over th' wall.  But I'll tell thee this.  There's been things
goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about.  An' what tha'll
find out tha'll find out soon."

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and
waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the
shrubbery a piece of the lawn.

"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious.  Look what's comin' across
th' grass."

When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little
shriek and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the
servants' hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes
almost starting out of their heads.

Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many
of them had never seen him.  And by his, side with his head up in the
air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as
any boy in Yorkshire--Master Colin.

The omniscient narrator opens the chapter by musing on the wonder of human invention, and suggests that one of the most remarkable ones of the previous  century was the idea that "thoughts...are as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison." She then notes the way in which both Colin and Mary have changed their negative thoughts to positive ones, and have flourished as a result. The narrator also says that only the courageous are able to do this; Master Craven, by contrast, has not been courageous&mdashhis mind is still full of his grief. The narrator finds Master Craven in the Austrian Tyrol, having "forgotten and deserted his home and his duties." At first, the natural landscape does nothing to soothe his anguish. Then his eye comes to rest on a cluster of flowers&mdashforget-me-nots&mdashand he finds himself marveling at their beauty. Looking at them, he feels "almost alive." Back at Misselthwaite, the garden too is coming alive&mdashand Master Craven is coming alive with it. His body and soul begin to become still stronger during his time in Italy, at Lake Como, where he goes after his departure from Austria. One night, he dreams of the Mistress Craven; she is calling his name and asking him to come find her in their garden. The next morning, he receives a letter from Susan Sowerby, advising him to come back to Misselthwaite at once: he must see Colin, she says, as his late wife would want him to. She does not explain why. Archibald immediately makes preparations to return home by rail. On the journey to England, Master Craven muses about his son and his history: he thinks of the way he has neglected Colin, for he has never felt at all like the father of such an hysteric. He thinks of the way Colin's eyes&mdashso like and yet so horribly unlike his mother's&mdashfill him with aversion. And yet, he remains serene, and resolves to at least try to rectify his relationship with his son upon his return. Master Craven is much pleased by his return to moor, and stops at Susan Sowerby's house to make a tiny gift to her children. At the manor, he immediately sets off for the garden to look for his son, as Mrs. Medlock says that he will find Colin there. He is astonished to hear sounds of children running and laughing, coming from beyond the secret garden's wall. Suddenly, the door is flung open, and Colin tumbles out into his father's arms. Master Craven, ecstatic to find him healthy, embraces Colin, and asks his son to show him around the secret garden. Colin does so, and tells him the entire story of its discovery and its reawakening. The three of them&mdashColin, Mary, and Master Craven&mdashwalk back to the manor house. Each and every person is utterly astounded by Archibald's happiness and Colin's vigor, now that it is no longer a secret.

This chapter marks the lengthiest of the narrator's intervention into the text. It serves a primarily didactic  function, in that it provides a kind of abstract of Colin and Mary's transformations, and of the book's major theme: the idea, taken from Christian Science, that thoughts alone are enough to determine one's health and well-being. The 19th century person who made this "discovery" is Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Baker Eddy's magnum opus, Science and Health, is to Christian Scientists what the Bible is to conventional Christians, or what Dianetics is to Scientologists. This chapter also marks the second time that the narrator does not present events in a straightforward chronological fashion: the other instance is at the beginning of the novel, in which she retrospectively looks at Mary's time in India from the point of view of Misselthwaite. The narrator traces Archibald Craven's travels, which occur at the same time as the events that make up the bulk of the novel. His travels demonstrate his extreme estrangement from that process of rebirth, even as it affects him: he begins to feel alive as the garden is brought back to life. The reader thereby realizes that the garden is as closely connected to his spirit as it is to his late wife's, although for a different reason. For him, its resurrection is his because it is, in some sense, what remains of his wife on earth. Susan Sowerby's summoning of Master Craven back to the manor is significant for several reasons. On the one hand, it indicates how thoroughly she has adopted Colin's cause; on the other, it puts her in the position of speaking for Mistress Craven, with whom she seems to have unusual sympathy. In the previous chapter she bends to kiss the garden's flowers, just as Mistress Craven used to. Furthermore, it indicates that she, like her son, is above the absurd indignities of class disparity: she writes to Master Craven despite the fact that he is "above her station" because she is, in reality, finer than he is&mdashand they both are aware of it. Archibald's dream of his wife brings him back to the garden. The dream is also, implicitly, a dream of his son: he ardently embraces Colin, in large part, because his eyes are now so like his mother's. This reader could not help but be made uncomfortable by how easily Master Craven was forgiven for his gross neglect of his son; though this is, of course, a dilemma each reader must resolve for himself. At novel's end, all of the secrets are out: that of the garden, of Mary's improvement, and of Colin's. Since secrets are the novel's animating force, it is entirely in keeping with the logic of the narrative that the story should end here.