For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched
him, and then he began to walk about softly, even more lightly than
Mary had walked the first time she had found herself inside the four
walls.  His eyes seemed to be taking in everything--the gray trees with
the gray creepers climbing over them and hanging from their branches,
the tangle on the walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with
the stone seats and tall flower urns standing in them.

"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper.

"Did you know about it?" asked Mary.

She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her.

"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's
to do in here."

"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand
quickly against her mouth.  "Did you know about the garden?" she asked
again when she had recovered herself.  Dickon nodded.

"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered.
"Us used to wonder what it was like."

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and
his round eyes looked queerly happy.

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said.  "It'd be th'
safest nestin' place in England.  No one never comin' near an' tangles
o' trees an' roses to build in.  I wonder all th' birds on th' moor
don't build here."

Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

"Will there be roses?" she whispered.  "Can you tell? I thought perhaps
they were all dead."

"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered.  "Look here!"

He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen
all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and
branches.  He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of
its blades.

"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said.  "An'
there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year.  This here's
a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead
of hard, dry gray.  Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

"That one?" she said.  "Is that one quite alive quite?"

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha
had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."

"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper.  "I want them all
to be wick.  Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones
there are."

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was.
They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush.  Dickon carried his
knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived
on it.  The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an'
growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder.  See here!" and he
pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch.  "A body might think this
was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root.  I'll cut
it low down an' see."

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through,
not far above the earth.

"There!" he said exultantly.  "I told thee so.  There's green in that
wood yet.  Look at it."

Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.

"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he
explained.  "When th' inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here
piece I've cut off, it's done for.  There's a big root here as all this
live wood sprung out of, an' if th' old wood's cut off an' it's dug
round, and took care of there'll be--" he stopped and lifted his face
to look up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him--"there'll be a
fountain o' roses here this summer."

They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree.  He was very strong
and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood
away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green
life in it.  In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell
too, and when he cut through a lifeless-looking branch she would cry
out joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade
of moist green.  The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful.  He
showed her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade
and stirred the earth and let the air in.

They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses
when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation
of surprise.

"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away.  "Who did that
there?"

It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points.

"I did it," said Mary.

"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed.

"I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so
thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe.
So I made a place for them.  I don't even know what they are."

Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile.

"Tha' was right," he said.  "A gardener couldn't have told thee better.
They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an'
snowdrops, an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch,
"an here's daffydowndillys.  Eh! they will be a sight."

He ran from one clearing to another.

"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking
her over.

"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger.  I used
always to be tired.  When I dig I'm not tired at all.  I like to smell
the earth when it's turned up."

"It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely.  "There's
naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o'
fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em. I get out on th' moor
many a day when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush an' listen to th'
soft swish o' drops on th' heather an' I just sniff an' sniff.  My nose
end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says."

"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.
She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.

"Not me," he said, grinning.  "I never ketched cold since I was born.
I wasn't brought up nesh enough.  I've chased about th' moor in all
weathers same as th' rabbits does.  Mother says I've sniffed up too
much fresh air for twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with cold.  I'm
as tough as a white-thorn knobstick."

He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him
and helping him with her fork or the trowel.

"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite
exultantly.

"Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged.  "I'm sure I
can help, too.  I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell
me.  Oh! do come, Dickon!"

"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered
stoutly.  "It's the best fun I ever had in my life--shut in here an'
wakenin' up a garden."

"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive
I'll--I don't know what I'll do," she ended helplessly.  What could you
do for a boy like that?

"I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon, with his happy grin.
"Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll
learn how to talk to th' robin same as I do.  Eh! we'll have a lot o'
fun."

He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and
bushes with a thoughtful expression.

"I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped
an' spick an' span, would you?" he said.  "It's nicer like this with
things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other."

"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously.  "It wouldn't seem
like a secret garden if it was tidy."

Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look.
"It's a secret garden sure enough," he said, "but seems like some one
besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year'
ago."

"But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary.  "No one
could get in."

"That's true," he answered.  "It's a queer place.  Seems to me as if
there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an' there, later than ten year'
ago."

"But how could it have been done?" said Mary.

He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head.

"Aye! how could it!" he murmured.  "With th' door locked an' th' key
buried."

Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should
never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow.  Of
course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning.  When Dickon
began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had
sung at her when he wanted to tease her.

"Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired.

"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel,
"an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas."

"Let's plant some," said Mary.  "There's lilies o' th, valley here
already; I saw 'em. They'll have growed too close an' we'll have to
separate 'em, but there's plenty.  Th' other ones takes two years to
bloom from seed, but I can bring you some bits o' plants from our
cottage garden.  Why does tha' want 'em?"

Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India
and of how she had hated them and of their calling her "Mistress Mary
Quite Contrary."

"They used to dance round and sing at me.  They sang--

         'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
         How does your garden grow?
         With silver bells, and cockle shells,
         And marigolds all in a row.'

I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers
like silver bells."

She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the
earth.

"I wasn't as contrary as they were."

But Dickon laughed.

"Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was
sniffing up the scent of it.  "There doesn't seem to be no need for no
one to be contrary when there's flowers an' such like, an' such lots o'
friendly wild things runnin' about makin' homes for themselves, or
buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?"

Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped
frowning.

"Dickon," she said, "you are as nice as Martha said you were.  I like
you, and you make the fifth person.  I never thought I should like five
people."

Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the
grate.  He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round
blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose.

"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said.  "Who is th' other four?"

"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and
the robin and Ben Weatherstaff."

Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting
his arm over his mouth.

"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art
th' queerest little lass I ever saw."

Then Mary did a strange thing.  She leaned forward and asked him a
question she had never dreamed of asking any one before.  And she tried
to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India a
native was always pleased if you knew his speech.

"Does tha' like me?" she said.

"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does.  I likes thee wonderful, an'
so does th' robin, I do believe!"

"That's two, then," said Mary.  "That's two for me."

And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully.  Mary
was startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard
strike the hour of her midday dinner.

"I shall have to go," she said mournfully.  "And you will have to go
too, won't you?"

Dickon grinned.

"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said.  "Mother always
lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."

He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a
lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white
handkerchief.  It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of
something laid between them.

"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice
o' fat bacon with it today."

Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it.

"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said.  "I'll be done with mine first.
I'll get some more work done before I start back home."

He sat down with his back against a tree.

"I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and give him th' rind o' th' bacon
to peck at.  They likes a bit o' fat wonderful."

Mary could scarcely bear to leave him.  Suddenly it seemed as if he
might be a sort of wood fairy who might be gone when she came into the
garden again.  He seemed too good to be true.  She went slowly half-way
to the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.

"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said.

His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of
bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.

"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does
tha' think I'd tell any one? Not me," he said.  "Tha' art as safe as a
missel thrush."

And she was quite sure she was.

Dickon tells Mary that he had heard of the secret garden from Martha, but never imagined that he would step inside it. He begins to investigate which of the plants are alive, and remarks that the secret garden would make a marvelous nesting place for birds, as there are no people there to harm them. The two busily set to work, clearing away the dead wood and more of the weeds. Dickon is impressed at how much Mary, who knew nothing of gardening, has been able to accomplish on her own. Mary replies, simply, that she likes the smell of the earth. Mary asks Dickon if he will help her with the garden, and Dickon happily agrees. Noting how many of the plants are still alive, Dickon wonders aloud if perhaps someone else hasn't been in the garden in the ten years since Master Craven locked its door. Mary tells Dickon that she wishes to grow flowers that look like bells, in defiance of the nursery taunt that the clergyman's children shouted at her, "Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow. With silver bells, and cockle shells, And marigolds all in a row. Mary tells Dickon that she likes him, and asks, in Yorkshire dialect, if he likes her as well. He asserts that both he and the robin like her a great deal. Their work is interrupted when Mary is called back to the house for her supper. She frets that she will never see Dickon again. Mary worries that, like a sprite or a wood- fairy, he will simply vanish as suddenly as he appeared. She does, however, completely trust that he will keep the secret of the garden.

The idea of the garden as a fairy-tale setting is refined in these chapters: if the garden is a "kind of fairy place," it is not one that causes magical sleep, but rather magical wakefulness. Mary thinks to herself, "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 thought must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake with every day which passed at Misselthwaite. While Mary is becoming rejuvenated by the garden, the garden is being rejuvenated by her presence. This process occurs because Mary and the garden are so closely aligned with one another. As Mary herself says, "Nobody wants , nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. They're letting it die, all shut in by itself. Mary, too, has been utterly neglected, shut in by herself, for the past ten years. Both she and the secret garden are being awoken at the same time, and by many of the same agents. The natural landscape, through personification , is here described as responding directly to Mary's work in the garden: "the bulbs. begin to cheer up under the dark earth. they begin to feel very much alive. If the natural world is subject to personification, persons are subject to what might be called "thingification": the characters most in harmony with Missel Moor often seem on the verge of becoming part of the landscape themselves. Ben Weatherstaff remarks that Mary seems "to spring out of the earth," and compares her silent approach to that of the robin. Mary, too, compares herself to the robin by noting that both he and she stumbled upon the garden by a sort of accident, and have made themselves at home there. Dickon strengthens this association in referring to the secret garden as Mary's "strange bird's nest" several times. By the same work of "thingification," Dickon's own eyes are described as looking like "pieces of moorland sky," and he smells of "heather and grass and leaves. as if he were made of them. Dickon's relationship to the moor is a uniquely close one, however: when the reader first encounters him, he is sitting beneath a tree charming animals with the music of his wooden pipe. This immediately conjures the image of panpipes, and serves to associate Dickon with the god Pan. He therefore is presented as having an uncannily close relationship with the wilderness and with wild things. Carrying his "thingification" still further, he tells Mary, "Sometimes I think perhaps I'm a bird, or a fox, or a squirrel. and I don't know it. Mary compares Dickon's pipe playing with the way "natives charm snakes in India. Throughout the novel, Mary perceives Dickon as thrillingly strange and exotic: like the Indian natives, he speaks a different language. Also like the Indians, he is visually marked as different from Mary - his difference is one of class, however, rather than of race. Mary comments several times upon Dickon's patched clothes and rough hair, as well as on the coarse simplicity of his food. This class difference is extremely provocative for Mary: she is instantly drawn to Dickon, and her revelation of the garden to him is full of implicit eroticism. It's as though she were displaying herself to him, on the one hand; on the other, it is underwritten by the extremely charged notion of "letting him inside. Throughout this scene, Mary is "panting with excitement," and she constantly touches Dickon, without knowing that she is doing so. An interesting footnote: Nancy Friday, the popular feminist psychologist, named her book of women's sexual fantasies My Secret Garden in homage to this scene


Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her
room.  Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright
pink.  Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near
it.

"Tha's a bit late," she said.  "Where has tha' been?"

"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary.  "I've seen Dickon!"

"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly.  "How does tha' like him?"

"I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice.

Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.

"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never
thought he was handsome.  His nose turns up too much."

"I like it to turn up," said Mary.

"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful.  "Though
they're a nice color." "I like them round," said Mary.  "And they are
exactly the color of the sky over the moor."

Martha beamed with satisfaction.

"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds
an' th' clouds.  But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?"

"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately.  "I wish mine were just
like it."

Martha chuckled delightedly.

"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said.  "But I
knowed it would be that way when tha' saw him.  How did tha' like th'
seeds an' th' garden tools?"

"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary.

"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em. He'd be sure to bring 'em
if they was in Yorkshire.  He's such a trusty lad."

Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but
she did not.  She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening
tools, and there was only one moment when Mary was frightened.  This
was when she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted.

"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired.

"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating.  "Well, I
wouldn't ask th' head gardener.  He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."

"I've never seen him," said Mary.  "I've only seen undergardeners and
Ben Weatherstaff."

"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha.  "He's not
half as bad as he looks, for all he's so crabbed.  Mr. Craven lets him
do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he
used to make her laugh.  She liked him.  Perhaps he'd find you a corner
somewhere out o' the way."

"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one could mind my
having it, could they?" Mary said anxiously.

"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha.  "You wouldn't do no
harm."

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the
table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but
Martha stopped her.

"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said.  "I thought I'd let you eat
your dinner first.  Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he
wants to see you."

Mary turned quite pale.

"Oh!" she said.  "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I came.  I
heard Pitcher say he didn't." "Well," explained Martha, "Mrs. Medlock
says it's because o' mother.  She was walkin' to Thwaite village an'
she met him.  She'd never spoke to him before, but Mrs. Craven had been
to our cottage two or three times.  He'd forgot, but mother hadn't an'
she made bold to stop him.  I don't know what she said to him about you
but she said somethin' as put him in th' mind to see you before he goes
away again, tomorrow."

"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away tomorrow? I am so glad!"

"He's goin' for a long time.  He mayn't come back till autumn or
winter.  He's goin' to travel in foreign places.  He's always doin' it."

"Oh! I'm so glad--so glad!" said Mary thankfully.

If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be
time to watch the secret garden come alive.  Even if he found out then
and took it away from her she would have had that much at least.

"When do you think he will want to see--"

She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs.
Medlock walked in.  She had on her best black dress and cap, and her
collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man's face
on it.  It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years
ago, and she always wore it when she was dressed up.  She looked
nervous and excited.

"Your hair's rough," she said quickly.  "Go and brush it.  Martha, help
her to slip on her best dress.  Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him
in his study."

All the pink left Mary's cheeks.  Her heart began to thump and she felt
herself changing into a stiff, plain, silent child again.  She did not
even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom,
followed by Martha.  She said nothing while her dress was changed, and
her hair brushed, and after she was quite tidy she followed Mrs.
Medlock down the corridors, in silence.  What was there for her to say?
She was obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and
she would not like him.  She knew what he would think of her.

She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before.  At
last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door, and when some one said, "Come in,"
they entered the room together.  A man was sitting in an armchair
before the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.

"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said.

"You can go and leave her here.  I will ring for you when I want you to
take her away," said Mr. Craven.

When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a
plain little thing, twisting her thin hands together.  She could see
that the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with
high, rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with
white.  He turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her.

"Come here!" he said.

Mary went to him.

He was not ugly.  His face would have been handsome if it had not been
so miserable.  He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him
and as if he did not know what in the world to do with her.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Mary.

"Do they take good care of you?"

"Yes."

He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.

"You are very thin," he said.

"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest
way.

What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely
saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly
keep his thoughts upon her.

"I forgot you," he said.  "How could I remember you? I intended to send
you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot."

"Please," began Mary.  "Please--" and then the lump in her throat
choked her.

"What do you want to say?" he inquired.

"I am--I am too big for a nurse," said Mary.  "And please--please don't
make me have a governess yet."

He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.

"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absentmindedly.

Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.

"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.

"Yes, I think so," he replied.

"She knows about children," said Mary.  "She has twelve.  She knows."

He seemed to rouse himself.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did
not tremble.  "I never liked it in India.  It makes me hungry here, and
I am getting fatter."

He was watching her.

"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good.  Perhaps it will," he said.
"She thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess."

"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor,"
argued Mary.

"Where do you play?" he asked next.

"Everywhere," gasped Mary.  "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope. I
skip and run--and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick
up out of the earth.  I don't do any harm."

"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice.  "You could not
do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like."

Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see
the excited lump which she felt jump into it.  She came a step nearer
to him.

"May I?" she said tremulously.

Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.

"Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed.  "Of course you may.  I am
your guardian, though I am a poor one for any child.  I cannot give you
time or attention.  I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I
wish you to be happy and comfortable.  I don't know anything about
children, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need.  I
sent for you to-day because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you.  Her
daughter had talked about you.  She thought you needed fresh air and
freedom and running about."

"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself.

"She ought to," said Mr. Craven.  "I thought her rather bold to stop me
on the moor, but she said--Mrs. Craven had been kind to her." It seemed
hard for him to speak his dead wife's name.  "She is a respectable
woman.  Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things.  Play out
of doors as much as you like.  It's a big place and you may go where
you like and amuse yourself as you like.  Is there anything you want?"
as if a sudden thought had struck him.  "Do you want toys, books,
dolls?"

"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?"

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound
and that they were not the ones she had meant to say.  Mr. Craven
looked quite startled.

"Earth!" he repeated.  "What do you mean?"

"To plant seeds in--to make things grow--to see them come alive," Mary
faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

"Do you--care about gardens so much," he said slowly.

"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary.  "I was always ill and
tired and it was too hot.  I sometimes made little beds in the sand and
stuck flowers in them.  But here it is different."

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she
must have reminded him of something.  When he stopped and spoke to her
his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

"You can have as much earth as you want," he said.  "You remind me of
some one else who loved the earth and things that grow.  When you see a
bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, "take it, child,
and make it come alive."

"May I take it from anywhere--if it's not wanted?"

"Anywhere," he answered.  "There! You must go now, I am tired." He
touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock.  "Good-by. I shall be away all
summer."

Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been
waiting in the corridor.

"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I
understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant.  She must be less delicate before
she begins lessons.  Give her simple, healthy food.  Let her run wild
in the garden.  Don't look after her too much.  She needs liberty and
fresh air and romping about.  Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now
and then and she may sometimes go to the cottage."

Mrs. Medlock looked pleased.  She was relieved to hear that she need
not "look after" Mary too much.  She had felt her a tiresome charge and
had indeed seen as little of her as she dared.  In addition to this she
was fond of Martha's mother.

"Thank you, sir," she said.  "Susan Sowerby and me went to school
together and she's as sensible and good-hearted a woman as you'd find
in a day's walk.  I never had any children myself and she's had twelve,
and there never was healthier or better ones.  Miss Mary can get no
harm from them.  I'd always take Susan Sowerby's advice about children
myself.  She's what you might call healthy-minded--if you understand
me."

"I understand," Mr. Craven answered.  "Take Miss Mary away now and send
Pitcher to me."

When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew
back to her room.  She found Martha waiting there.  Martha had, in
fact, hurried back after she had removed the dinner service.

"I can have my garden!" cried Mary.  "I may have it where I like! I am
not going to have a governess for a long time! Your mother is coming to
see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me
could not do any harm and I may do what I like--anywhere!"

"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?"

"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face
is so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together."

She ran as quickly as she could to the garden.  She had been away so
much longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would
have to set out early on his five-mile walk.  When she slipped through
the door under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left
him.  The gardening tools were laid together under a tree.  She ran to
them, looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen.
He had gone away and the secret garden was empty--except for the robin
who had just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush
watching her.  "He's gone," she said woefully.  "Oh! was he--was
he--was he only a wood fairy?"

Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye.  It
was a piece of paper, in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had
printed for Martha to send to Dickon.  It was fastened on the bush with
a long thorn, and in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there.  There
were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of picture.  At
first she could not tell what it was.  Then she saw it was meant for a
nest with a bird sitting on it.  Underneath were the printed letters
and they said:

"I will cum bak."

Back at the manor house, Mary tells Martha that she has met Dickon. Martha is much amused when Mary exclaims that she finds him beautiful. Mary discovers that her uncle has returned from his trip abroad. Susan Sowerby, Dickon and Martha's mother, had confronted him in Thwaite village upon his return, and reproached him for neglecting Mary. Master Craven therefore wants to see Mary immediately, as he is leaving Misselthwaite again the following day. Mary is delighted at his imminent departure, but dreads meeting him: she is certain they will despise each other. Mrs. Medlock leads Mary to Master Craven's sitting room, where they find him sitting before a fire. Mary then sees that he is not precisely a hunchback, though his shoulders are crooked-in fact, he would be handsome if not for the terrible misery in his face. He admits that he simply forgot to attend to Mary, and asks her if she would like a governess or nurse to keep her company. Mary fervently declares that she would much rather play on the moor, and grow strong before she begins her education. He agrees, and asks if there is anything at all she wants. Mary replies that she wants nothing more than "a bit of earth" for her gardening. Mr. Craven is quite moved by this request, as it reminds him of his late wife's love of gardens, and tells her that she may have any piece of land she wants, from anywhere on the manor grounds. Mary rushes back to the nursery and tells Martha that her uncle has given her permission to keep a bit of earth and to visit with Martha's family. She then hurries back to the secret garden in search of Dickon, but finds that he has left for home. There is a note affixed to one of the rose bushes, on which Dickon has drawn a picture of a bird on its nest and a promise to return.

This chapter is largely devoted to the character of Archibald Craven, who appears for the first time here. The malicious effects of gossip  can be seen in the fact that Archibald is not a "hunchback" at all - that description of him was merely cruel distortion. His most important quality is his extreme misery, for he still mourns the death of his wife. Archibald's sadness has a mortifying  effect upon both him and those around him: upon being taken into his chamber, Mary again becomes "a stiff, plain, silent child. " One of the book's underlying motifs is the way in which happiness begets happiness, and misery begets only more of itself: therefore, the fact that Master Craven is sad ensures that he will continue to be sad, and will make those around him similarly dismal. The source of this notion can be found in Burnett's fascination with the New Thought and Christian Science movements, which held that one must think only positive thoughts if one wants good things to happen. The fact that this idea is patently false miraculously did nothing to deter its adherents. Master Craven's constitutional sickness is further borne out by his constant travel "in foreign places." In the economy of the novel, all life and joy are contained on Missel Moor, and thus to travel is a sign of illness. To leave the moor is to condemn oneself to suffering. It is significant that Archibald's interest in Mary is the result of Susan Sowerby's intervention: along with the gift of the jump rope, this incident indicates that Mrs. Sowerby has "adopted" Mary, sight unseen. She is the mother figure of which Mary has heretofore been deprived, and is presented as a stark contrast to both her own mother and all the women she has known. Mary herself remarks that Susan is "not at all like the mothers in India": she is supernaturally nurturing, and has produced a staggering fourteen children of her own. In her purity and simplicity, she is the quintessential "earth mother" - that is, she is aligned with both nature and with the idea of motherhood itself. Mary's relationship with Dickon is further eroticized here: when Martha asks Mary about her meeting with Dickon, she can only exclaim that she "thinks he's beautiful." He, like the garden, seems to her to be a "fairy-tale"; only his note proves that he truly exists. This note again compares Mary to a bird, and the garden to a nest--an association that will gain in importance in later chapters, when the nest becomes both Mary's and Dickon's--thereby making their friendship an explicitly romantic one.


Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and
she showed it to Martha.

"Eh!" said Martha with great pride.  "I never knew our Dickon was as
clever as that.  That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest,
as large as life an' twice as natural."

Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message.  He had
meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret.  Her garden was
her nest and she was like a missel thrush.  Oh, how she did like that
queer, common boy!

She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep
looking forward to the morning.

But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly
in the springtime.  She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain
beating with heavy drops against her window.  It was pouring down in
torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and in the
chimneys of the huge old house.  Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable
and angry.

"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said.  "It came because it
knew I did not want it."

She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face.  She did not
cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she
hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again.
The mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself.
If she had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep.  How
it "wuthered" and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against
the pane!

"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on
crying," she said.

She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour,
when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward
the door listening.  She listened and she listened.

"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper.  "That isn't the
wind.  It is different.  It is that crying I heard before."

The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a
far-off faint sound of fretful crying.  She listened for a few minutes
and each minute she became more and more sure.  She felt as if she must
find out what it was.  It seemed even stranger than the secret garden
and the buried key.  Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood
made her bold.  She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor.

"I am going to find out what it is," she said.  "Everybody is in bed
and I don't care about Mrs. Medlock--I don't care!"

There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly
out of the room.  The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was
too excited to mind that.  She thought she remembered the corners she
must turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with
tapestry--the one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she lost
herself.  The sound had come up that passage.  So she went on with her
dim light, almost feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she
fancied she could hear it.  The far-off faint crying went on and led
her.  Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again.
Was this the right corner to turn? She stopped and thought.  Yes it
was.  Down this passage and then to the left, and then up two broad
steps, and then to the right again.  Yes, there was the tapestry door.

She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood
in the corridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was
not loud.  It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few
yards farther on there was a door.  She could see a glimmer of light
coming from beneath it.  The Someone was crying in that room, and it
was quite a young Someone.

So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was
standing in the room!

It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it.  There was a
low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the
side of a carved four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was
lying a boy, crying fretfully.

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep
again and was dreaming without knowing it.

The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to
have eyes too big for it.  He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over
his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller.  He
looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he
were tired and cross than as if he were in pain.

Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her
breath.  Then she crept across the room, and, as she drew nearer, the
light attracted the boy's attention and he turned his head on his
pillow and stared at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they
seemed immense.

"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper.  "Are you
a ghost?"

"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half
frightened.  "Are you one?"

He stared and stared and stared.  Mary could not help noticing what
strange eyes he had.  They were agate gray and they looked too big for
his face because they had black lashes all round them.

"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so.  "I am Colin."

"Who is Colin?" she faltered.

"I am Colin Craven.  Who are you?"

"I am Mary Lennox.  Mr. Craven is my uncle."

"He is my father," said the boy.

"Your father!" gasped Mary.  "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why
didn't they?"

"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with
an anxious expression.

She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.

"You are real, aren't you?" he said.  "I have such real dreams very
often.  You might be one of them."

Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she
put a piece of it between his fingers.

"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said.  "I will pinch
you a little if you like, to show you how real I am.  For a minute I
thought you might be a dream too."

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"From my own room.  The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I
heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was.  What were you
crying for?"

"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached.  Tell me your
name again."

"Mary Lennox.  Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a
little more as if he believed in her reality.

"No," he answered.  "They daren't."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because I should have been afraid you would see me.  I won't let
people see me and talk me over."

"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.

"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down.  My father
won't let people talk me over either.  The servants are not allowed to
speak about me.  If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live.  My
father hates to think I may be like him."

"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said.  "What a queer house!
Everything is a kind of secret.  Rooms are locked up and gardens are
locked up--and you!  Have you been locked up?"

"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it.
It tires me too much."

"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured.

"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep.  He doesn't want to see me."

"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.

A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.

"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at
me.  He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking.  He almost
hates me."

"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to
herself.

"What garden?" the boy asked.

"Oh! just--just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered.  "Have you
been here always?" "Nearly always.  Sometimes I have been taken to
places at the seaside, but I won't stay because people stare at me.  I
used to wear an iron thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor
came from London to see me and said it was stupid.  He told them to
take it off and keep me out in the fresh air.  I hate fresh air and I
don't want to go out."

"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary.  "Why do you keep looking
at me like that?"

"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully.
"Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake."

"We're both awake," said Mary.  She glanced round the room with its
high ceiling and shadowy corners and dim fire-light.  "It looks quite
like a dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the
house is asleep--everybody but us.  We are wide awake."

"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.

Mary thought of something all at once.

"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go
away?"

He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.

"No," he said.  "I should be sure you were a dream if you went.  If you
are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk.  I want to hear
about you."

Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the
cushioned stool.  She did not want to go away at all.  She wanted to
stay in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.

He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to
know which corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had
been doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had
lived before she came to Yorkshire.  She answered all these questions
and many more and he lay back on his pillow and listened.  He made her
tell him a great deal about India and about her voyage across the
ocean.  She found out that because he had been an invalid he had not
learned things as other children had.  One of his nurses had taught him
to read when he was quite little and he was always reading and looking
at pictures in splendid books.

Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all
sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with.  He never seemed to
have been amused, however.  He could have anything he asked for and was
never made to do anything he did not like to do.  "Everyone is obliged
to do what pleases me," he said indifferently.  "It makes me ill to be
angry.  No one believes I shall live to grow up."

He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to
matter to him at all.  He seemed to like the sound of Mary's voice.  As
she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way.  Once or
twice she wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze.  But
at last he asked a question which opened up a new subject.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so
are you."

"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.

"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was
buried.  And it has been locked for ten years."

Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.

"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he
exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

"It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously.  "He
locked the door.  No one--no one knew where he buried the key." "What
sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.

"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's
careful answer.

But it was too late to be careful.  He was too much like herself.  He
too had had nothing to think about and the idea of a hidden garden
attracted him as it had attracted her.  He asked question after
question.  Where was it? Had she never looked for the door? Had she
never asked the gardeners?

"They won't talk about it," said Mary.  "I think they have been told
not to answer questions."

"I would make them," said Colin.

"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened.  If he could
make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

"Everyone is obliged to please me.  I told you that," he said.  "If I
were to live, this place would sometime belong to me.  They all know
that.  I would make them tell me."

Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see
quite plainly that this mysterious boy had been.  He thought that the
whole world belonged to him.  How peculiar he was and how coolly he
spoke of not living.

"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was
curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.

"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had
spoken before.  "Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say
I shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now
they think I don't hear.  But I do.  My doctor is my father's cousin.
He is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my
father is dead.  I should think he wouldn't want me to live."

"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion.  "But I don't want to
die.  When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and
cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know
who it was.  Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget
the garden.

"I dare say," he answered.  "Let us talk about something else.  Talk
about that garden.  Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

"I do," he went on persistently.  "I don't think I ever really wanted
to see anything before, but I want to see that garden.  I want the key
dug up.  I want the door unlocked.  I would let them take me there in
my chair.  That would be getting fresh air.  I am going to make them
open the door."

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like
stars and looked more immense than ever.

"They have to please me," he said.  "I will make them take me there and
I will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other.  Everything would be
spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back.  She would never
again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed.  "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make
them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret
again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said.  "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if
there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we
could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it
behind us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our
garden and pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our
nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds
and made it all come alive--"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on.  "The bulbs will
live but the roses--"

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops.  They are working in the
earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."

"Is the spring coming?" he said.  "What is it like? You don't see it in
rooms if you are ill."

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the
sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth," said
Mary.  "If the garden was a secret and we could get into it we could
watch the things grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are
alive.  Don't you see?  Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be
if it was a secret?"

He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on
his face.

"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to
grow up.  They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret.  But
I like this kind better."

"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary,
"perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime.
And then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you
can always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some
boy who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a
secret garden."

"I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy.
"I should like that.  I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."

Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of
keeping the secret seemed to please him.  She felt almost sure that if
she kept on talking and could make him see the garden in his mind as
she had seen it he would like it so much that he could not bear to
think that everybody might tramp in to it when they chose.

"I'll tell you what I think it would be like, if we could go into it,"
she said.  "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle
perhaps."

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the
roses which might have clambered from tree to tree and hung down--about
the many birds which might have built their nests there because it was
so safe.  And then she told him about the robin and Ben Weatherstaff,
and there was so much to tell about the robin and it was so easy and
safe to talk about it that she ceased to be afraid.  The robin pleased
him so much that he smiled until he looked almost beautiful, and at
first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than herself, with his
big eyes and heavy locks of hair.

"I did not know birds could be like that," he said.  "But if you stay
in a room you never see things.  What a lot of things you know.  I feel
as if you had been inside that garden."

She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything.  He
evidently did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a
surprise.

"I am going to let you look at something," he said.  "Do you see that
rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?"

Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it.  It was a
curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

"Yes," she answered.

"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin.  "Go and pull it."

Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord.  When she pulled it
the silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a
picture.  It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face.  She had
bright hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were
exactly like Colin's unhappy ones, agate gray and looking twice as big
as they really were because of the black lashes all round them.

"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly.  "I don't see why she
died.  Sometimes I hate her for doing it."

"How queer!" said Mary.

"If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always," he
grumbled.  "I dare say I should have lived, too.  And my father would
not have hated to look at me.  I dare say I should have had a strong
back.  Draw the curtain again."

Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.

"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like
yours--at least they are the same shape and color.  Why is the curtain
drawn over her?"

He moved uncomfortably.

"I made them do it," he said.  "Sometimes I don't like to see her
looking at me.  She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable.
Besides, she is mine and I don't want everyone to see her." There were
a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke.

"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she
inquired.

"She would do as I told her to do," he answered.  "And I should tell
her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day.  I am glad
you came."

"So am I," said Mary.  "I will come as often as I can, but"--she
hesitated--"I shall have to look every day for the garden door."

"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward."

He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke
again.

"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said.  "I will not tell them
until they find out.  I can always send the nurse out of the room and
say that I want to be by myself.  Do you know Martha?"

"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary.  "She waits on me."

He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.

"She is the one who is asleep in the other room.  The nurse went away
yesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes Martha
attend to me when she wants to go out.  Martha shall tell you when to
come here."

Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked
questions about the crying.

"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said.

"Yes; she often attends to me.  The nurse likes to get away from me and
then Martha comes."

"I have been here a long time," said Mary.  "Shall I go away now? Your
eyes look sleepy."

"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly.

"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will
do what my Ayah used to do in India.  I will pat your hand and stroke
it and sing something quite low."

"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.

Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she
leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a
very low little chanting song in Hindustani.

"That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting
and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were
lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast
asleep.  So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without
making a sound.

That night, the sound of the rain drumming upon the windows awakens Mary. She is greatly miserable at the onset of the storm, because she knows that it will keep her confined to the manor house all the following day. Once so awakened, she is too upset to go back to sleep. The wind and rain sound to Mary like human wails-"like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying." After lying awake for nearly an hour, Mary hears something beneath the sound of the storm: the same cries she heard in the corridor, as of a child weeping. In complete defiance of Mrs. Medlock's command that she keep to her room, she goes off in search of its source. Mary follows the noise through Misselthwaite's darkened corridors, until she finds the door to a room in which a light is still burning. Upon entering the room, Mary finds a thin, curious-looking boy lying upon a massive four-poster bed. The boy is as white as a statue, as though he has been ill, and he is crying. Each child is not certain whether the other is a ghost, or a dream, and, for a long while, they simply stare speechlessly at one other. The boy is Colin Craven, Master Craven's son. He was born ten years before, in the same year in which Mary was born and the secret garden locked shut. Colin's father cannot bear to see him, as Colin reminds him of his late wife; the boy resembles her, and was born only shortly before she died. Archibald is ashamed of how sickly Colin is, and has forbidden the servants to speak of him. Everyone fears that he will become a hunchback and die before he reaches adulthood. Colin himself hates to be looked at, because he despises the pity and morbid fascination he inspires. He refuses to leave the manor house, and spends all his time shut up in his grand gloomy room. Colin does not mind, however, if Mary looks at him, as he is greatly interested in who she is and where she comes from. Mary is only too happy to stay in the hidden room and talk to the hidden boy--both remind her of the secret garden. Colin tells Mary that his father gives him anything he wants to amuse himself with; everyone must obey his wishes, as it "makes ill to be angry." When Mary mentions the secret garden to Colin, he begins bombarding her with questions. He threatens to force the servants tell him everything they know about the garden, and calmly states again that everyone must obey his wishes, as he may one day be master of Misselthwaite-provided that he lives. To distract him from the question of the garden, Mary asks Colin if he truly believes that he will die. Colin tells her that he imagines that he will, for people have been saying that he will not live to adulthood since his birth. Colin's doctor is Archibald Craven's brother, and it would suit the doctor well if Colin died, since the manor would then belong to him. It was the thought of his impending death that caused Colin to weep. Colin tells Mary that he wants to see the secret garden more desperately than he has ever wanted anything, and that he intends to make the servants take him to it. Mary anxiously replies that the garden will be utterly spoiled if everyone knows of it. It is glorious because it is a secret. Colin, who has never had a secret before, agrees to keep this one. At Colin's instruction, Mary draws back a rose-colored curtain hanging over the mantelpiece to reveal a picture of a laughing woman with gray eyes exactly like Colin's own. Colin tells Mary that this is a portrait of his mother. It is kept covered for two contradictory reasons: on the one hand, Colin dislikes that she is laughing while he is so ill and unhappy; on the other, he thinks of her as his treasure, one which he does not wish to share with anyone. He almost hates her for dying, for he believes that he would not have been sick, and his father would not have despised him, if only she had lived. Mary tells Colin that she will continue looking for the door to the garden, and the two children decide to keep their meeting a secret. Before leaving, Mary sings him to sleep with a Hindustani lullaby that her Ayah used to sing to her.

The motif of secrets is greatly enlarged upon in this chapter in a number of ways; the secrets include the portrait of Colin's mother, Colin's room, and the person of Colin himself. The forbidden quality of Colin's bedchamber is similar to the fairy-tale story of Bluebeard and his wife. Like Bluebeard's wife, Mary finds her own curiosity irrepressible. She does not, however, try to repress it: her contrariness inspires her to disobey all prohibitions. The similarity of this scene to a fairy-tale is borne out by the way in which neither Colin nor Mary is certain at first that the other is not a dream; this blurry distinction between fantasy and reality is, in some sense, the definition of a fairy story. The question of whether this is all a dream also arises, in some measure, because both Mary and Colin are awakening from a long sleep: their meeting  heralds their complete re-awakening. As Mary remarks: "It looks quite like a dream... everybody in the house is asleep-everybody but us. We are wide awake." The first meeting between the two children makes it quite clear that they have lived what might be called parallel lives: both are precisely ten years old; both were burdened with parents who could not bear to look at them; both have passed sickly, neglected childhoods that have left them unbelievably spoiled; and both have been denied and hidden away like secrets by the parents. Upon seeing Colin, Mary exclaims, "I never knew  had a child!" This outburst precisely echoes the reaction of the British soldiers upon discovering Mary in the bungalow. The fact that both children have been kept as secrets explains why they determine to keep their meeting a secret, and why the idea of a secret garden is so appealing to both of them; the latter is even attractive enough to inspire the spoiled Colin to be patient. When one is a secret, one is not able to keep secrets of one's own; the fact that Colin and Mary now share this one indicates that they are acquiring a new power and independence. It is important to note, however, that Colin has at least one other secret: the portrait of his mother that he keeps concealed behind a "rose-colored" curtain. The curtain continues the association of the Mistress Craven with roses, and also further aligns her with the secret garden; she, too, has been "shut away" for the past ten years. As in the case of the secret garden, it is love of Mistress Craven that partially inspires the concealment. As Colin says, "She is mine and I do not want everyone to see her." At the close of the chapter, Mary takes care of Colin as her Ayah took care of her: she tells him stories and sings him a Hindustani song. This action implicitly positions her as both his caretaker and his subordinate, and foreshadows the way in which Colin will subordinate her on the narrative level by replacing her as the primary protagonist. Colin is the true master of Misselthwaite, and is Archibald Craven's heir; Mary, by contrast, is only a girl, and has no authorized position in the house to speak of. The natural landscape is again depicted as conspiring with and mirroring its human inhabitants: it is the "wuthering" of the wind that awakens Mary and alerts her to Colin's crying. The sound of the wind seems almost to imitate Master Colin.


The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not
stopped pouring down.  There could be no going out of doors.  Martha
was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the
afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery.  She
came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing
nothing else.

"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down.
"Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say."

"I have.  I have found out what the crying was," said Mary.

Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled
eyes.

"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed.  "Never!"

"I heard it in the night," Mary went on.  "And I got up and went to see
where it came from.  It was Colin.  I found him."

Martha's face became red with fright.

"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying.  "Tha' shouldn't have done
it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble.  I never told thee
nothin' about him--but tha'll get me in trouble.  I shall lose my place
and what'll mother do!"

"You won't lose your place," said Mary.  "He was glad I came.  We
talked and talked and he said he was glad I came."

"Was he?" cried Martha.  "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's
like when anything vexes him.  He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but
when he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us.  He knows
us daren't call our souls our own."

"He wasn't vexed," said Mary.  "I asked him if I should go away and he
made me stay.  He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and
talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens.  He wouldn't
let me go.  He let me see his mother's picture.  Before I left him I
sang him to sleep."

Martha fairly gasped with amazement.

"I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested.  "It's as if tha'd walked
straight into a lion's den.  If he'd been like he is most times he'd
have throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th' house.  He
won't let strangers look at him."

"He let me look at him.  I looked at him all the time and he looked at
me.  We stared!" said Mary.

"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha.  "If Mrs. Medlock
finds out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be
packed back to mother."

"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet.  It's to
be a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly.  "And he says
everybody is obliged to do as he pleases."

"Aye, that's true enough--th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her
forehead with her apron.

"He says Mrs. Medlock must.  And he wants me to come and talk to him
every day.  And you are to tell me when he wants me."

"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place--I shall for sure!"

"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is
ordered to obey him," Mary argued.

"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was
nice to thee!"

"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.

"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long
breath.

"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary.  "I've heard about Magic in India,
but I can't make it.  I just went into his room and I was so surprised
to see him I stood and stared.  And then he turned round and stared at
me.  And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he
was.  And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of
the night and not knowing about each other.  And we began to ask each
other questions.  And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must
not."

"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.

"Nobody knows for sure and certain," said Martha.  "Mr. Craven went off
his head like when he was born.  Th' doctors thought he'd have to be
put in a 'sylum.  It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you.  He
wouldn't set eyes on th' baby.  He just raved and said it'd be another
hunchback like him and it'd better die."

"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked.  "He didn't look like one."

"He isn't yet," said Martha.  "But he began all wrong.  Mother said
that there was enough trouble and raging in th' house to set any child
wrong.  They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been
takin' care of it--keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk.
Once they made him wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill.
Then a big doctor came to see him an' made them take it off.  He talked
to th' other doctor quite rough--in a polite way.  He said there'd been
too much medicine and too much lettin' him have his own way."

"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.

"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha.  "I won't say as
he hasn't been ill a good bit.  He's had coughs an' colds that's nearly
killed him two or three times.  Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he
had typhoid.  Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then.  He'd been out of
his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't know
nothin', an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing
for him an' for everybody.' An' she looked at him an' there he was with
his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible as she was herself.  She
didn't know wha'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give
me some water an' stop talkin'.'"

"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.

"Mother says there's no reason why any child should live that gets no
fresh air an' doesn't do nothin' but lie on his back an' read
picture-books an' take medicine.  He's weak and hates th' trouble o'
bein' taken out o' doors, an' he gets cold so easy he says it makes him
ill."

Mary sat and looked at the fire.  "I wonder," she said slowly, "if it
would not do him good to go out into a garden and watch things growing.
It did me good."

"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they
took him out where the roses is by the fountain.  He'd been readin' in
a paper about people gettin' somethin' he called 'rose cold' an' he
began to sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't
know th' rules passed by an' looked at him curious.  He threw himself
into a passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to
be a hunchback.  He cried himself into a fever an' was ill all night."

"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said
Mary.

"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha.  "Tha' may as well
know that at th' start."

Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.

"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said.  "I
hope he's in a good temper."

She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a
puzzled expression.

"Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said.  "He's up on his sofa with
his picture-books. He's told the nurse to stay away until six o'clock.
I'm to wait in the next room.  Th' minute she was gone he called me to
him an' says, 'I want Mary Lennox to come and talk to me, and remember
you're not to tell any one.' You'd better go as quick as you can."

Mary was quite willing to go quickly.  She did not want to see Colin as
much as she wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.

There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in
the daylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed.  There were
rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the
walls which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the
gray sky and falling rain.  Colin looked rather like a picture himself.
He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded
cushion.  He had a red spot on each cheek.

"Come in," he said.  "I've been thinking about you all morning."

"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary.  "You don't know
how frightened Martha is.  She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me
about you and then she will be sent away."

He frowned.

"Go and tell her to come here," he said.  "She is in the next room."

Mary went and brought her back.  Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes.
Colin was still frowning.

"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded.

"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red.

"Has Medlock to do what I please?"

"Everybody has, sir," said Martha.

"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock
send you away if she finds it out?"

"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.

"I'll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing,"
said Master Craven grandly.  "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you."

"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir."

"What I want is your duty" said Colin more grandly still.  "I'll take
care of you.  Now go away."

When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at
him as if he had set her wondering.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her.  "What are you
thinking about?"

"I am thinking about two things."

"What are they? Sit down and tell me."

"This is the first one," said Mary, seating herself on the big stool.
"Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah.  He had rubies and emeralds
and diamonds stuck all over him.  He spoke to his people just as you
spoke to Martha.  Everybody had to do everything he told them--in a
minute.  I think they would have been killed if they hadn't."

"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first
tell me what the second thing was."

"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon."

"Who is Dickon?" he said.  "What a queer name!"

She might as well tell him, she thought she could talk about Dickon
without mentioning the secret garden.  She had liked to hear Martha
talk about him.  Besides, she longed to talk about him.  It would seem
to bring him nearer.

"He is Martha's brother.  He is twelve years old," she explained.  "He
is not like any one else in the world.  He can charm foxes and
squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes.  He
plays a very soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen."

There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one
suddenly toward him.  "There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,"
he exclaimed.  "Come and look at it."

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he
turned to one of them.

"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.

"He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained.  "But he
doesn't call it Magic.  He says it's because he lives on the moor so
much and he knows their ways.  He says he feels sometimes as if he was
a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so.  I think he asked the
robin questions.  It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft
chirps."

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and
the spots on his cheeks burned.

"Tell me some more about him," he said.

"He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on.  "And he knows where
foxes and badgers and otters live.  He keeps them secret so that other
boys won't find their holes and frighten them.  He knows about
everything that grows or lives on the moor."

"Does he like the moor?" said Colin.  "How can he when it's such a
great, bare, dreary place?"

"It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary.  "Thousands of lovely
things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy
building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing
or squeaking to each other.  They are so busy and having such fun under
the earth or in the trees or heather.  It's their world."

"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at
her.

"I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering.
"I only drove over it in the dark.  I thought it was hideous.  Martha
told me about it first and then Dickon.  When Dickon talks about it you
feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in
the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey--and
all full of bees and butterflies."

"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly.  He
looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and
wondering what it was.

"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.

"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.

Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.

"You might--sometime."

He moved as if he were startled.

"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die." "How do you know?"
said Mary unsympathetically.  She didn't like the way he had of talking
about dying.  She did not feel very sympathetic.  She felt rather as if
he almost boasted about it.

"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly.  "They
are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice.  They wish
I would, too."

Mistress Mary felt quite contrary.  She pinched her lips together.

"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?"

"The servants--and of course Dr. Craven because he would get
Misselthwaite and be rich instead of poor.  He daren't say so, but he
always looks cheerful when I am worse.  When I had typhoid fever his
face got quite fat.  I think my father wishes it, too."

"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately.

That made Colin turn and look at her again.

"Don't you?" he said.

And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were
thinking.  And there was quite a long silence.  Perhaps they were both
of them thinking strange things children do not usually think.  "I like
the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron thing
off," said Mary at last "Did he say you were going to die?"

"No.".

"What did he say?"

"He didn't whisper," Colin answered.  "Perhaps he knew I hated
whispering.  I heard him say one thing quite aloud.  He said, 'The lad
might live if he would make up his mind to it.  Put him in the humor.'
It sounded as if he was in a temper."

"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary
reflecting.  She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one
way or the other.  "I believe Dickon would.  He's always talking about
live things.  He never talks about dead things or things that are ill.
He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying--or looking
down at the earth to see something growing.  He has such round blue
eyes and they are so wide open with looking about.  And he laughs such
a big laugh with his wide mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as red as
cherries." She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression
quite changed at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide
open eyes.

"See here," she said.  "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it.
Let us talk about living.  Let us talk and talk about Dickon.  And then
we will look at your pictures."

It was the best thing she could have said.  To talk about Dickon meant
to talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people
who lived in it on sixteen shillings a week--and the children who got
fat on the moor grass like the wild ponies.  And about Dickon's
mother--and the skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on it--and
about pale green points sticking up out of the black sod.  And it was
all so alive that Mary talked more than she had ever talked before--and
Colin both talked and listened as he had never done either before.  And
they both began to laugh over nothings as children will when they are
happy together.  And they laughed so that in the end they were making
as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural
ten-year-old creatures--instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a
sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they
forgot about the time.  They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben
Weatherstaff and his robin, and Colin was actually sitting up as if he
had forgotten about his weak back, when he suddenly remembered
something.  "Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought
of," he said.  "We are cousins."

It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered
this simple thing that they laughed more than ever, because they had
got into the humor to laugh at anything.  And in the midst of the fun
the door opened and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock.

Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back
because he had accidentally bumped against her.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almost starting
out of her head.  "Good Lord!"

"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward.  "What does it mean?"

Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again.  Colin answered as if
neither the doctor's alarm nor Mrs. Medlock's terror were of the
slightest consequence.  He was as little disturbed or frightened as if
an elderly cat and dog had walked into the room.

"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said.  "I asked her to come and
talk to me.  I like her.  She must come and talk to me whenever I send
for her."

Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock.  "Oh, sir" she panted.
"I don't know how it's happened.  There's not a servant on the place
tha'd dare to talk--they all have their orders."

"Nobody told her anything," said Colin.  "She heard me crying and found
me herself.  I am glad she came.  Don't be silly, Medlock."

Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain
that he dare not oppose his patient.  He sat down by Colin and felt his
pulse.

"I am afraid there has been too much excitement.  Excitement is not
good for you, my boy," he said.

"I should be excited if she kept away," answered Colin, his eyes
beginning to look dangerously sparkling.  "I am better.  She makes me
better.  The nurse must bring up her tea with mine.  We will have tea
together."

Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but
there was evidently nothing to be done.

"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock.
"But"--thinking the matter over--"he looked better this morning before
she came into the room."

"She came into the room last night.  She stayed with me a long time.
She sang a Hindustani song to me and it made me go to sleep," said
Colin.  "I was better when I wakened up.  I wanted my breakfast.  I
want my tea now.  Tell nurse, Medlock."

Dr. Craven did not stay very long.  He talked to the nurse for a few
minutes when she came into the room and said a few words of warning to
Colin.  He must not talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill;
he must not forget that he was very easily tired.  Mary thought that
there seemed to be a number of uncomfortable things he was not to
forget.

Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on
Dr. Craven's face.

"I want to forget it," he said at last.  "She makes me forget it.  That
is why I want her."

Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left the room.  He gave a puzzled
glance at the little girl sitting on the large stool.  She had become a
stiff, silent child again as soon as he entered and he could not see
what the attraction was.  The boy actually did look brighter,
however--and he sighed rather heavily as he went down the corridor.

"They are always wanting me to eat things when I don't want to," said
Colin, as the nurse brought in the tea and put it on the table by the
sofa.  "Now, if you'll eat I will.  Those muffins look so nice and hot.
Tell me about Rajahs."

The next day, the rainstorm continues unabated. Mary tells Martha that she has met Colin. Martha was supposed to be guarding Colin's room during the night, but had fallen asleep and thus made it possible for Mary to creep in unnoticed. She is certain that she will lose her position in the house, but Mary reassures her, saying that Colin will not permit that to happen. Martha tells Mary that all the servants fear Colin's wrath, for he knows that " souls are not  own"-that is, he knows that, since they are servants, they are utterly dependent upon him for their survival. Mary tells Martha that Colin wishes to visit with her every day. Martha is astonished, for Colin is famous for throwing tantrums when confronted with strangers; it is as though Mary "bewitched him." Mary says that it was not magic that drew the two of them together. She also vows that she will not see Colin if he becomes angry with her, to which Martha implacably replies that everyone must obey his wishes. A bell summons Martha to Colin's room, where he tells her that he wishes to speak with Mary immediately. Mary agrees, as she actually wants to see Colin--though not so much as she wants to see Dickon. In his opulent room, Mary tells Colin that he reminds her of a child rajah  that she saw while she was in India. The rajah's servants were obliged to comply with his every command, or they would lose their lives. Mary tells him that he is very unlike Dickon, who can charm the moor animals as fakirs in India can charm snakes. Dickon has taught her to love the moor, and she tells Colin that he would too, if only he could see it. Annoyed, he replies that he is far too ill to go out on the moor. Mary is unsympathetic to his talk of illness and death, and tells him that he needn't die, even if everyone expects and wants him to: she declares, "If everyone wished I would , I wouldn't." Colin thinks a moment, and then says that only one person did not seem to think he would die. This person, a great doctor from London, had said that Colin might live if only he could make up his mind to do so. Mary thinks that a visit from Dickon could help Colin make up his mind to live, for Dickon cares so much for living things, for the plants and animals of the moor. The two cease to think of death, and begin to talk about Dickon and his family, as well as of the coming spring-to act, in short, like the children they actually are. In the midst of their laughter, Mrs. Medlock and Colin's uncle, Dr. Craven, enter the room. The adults are shocked to see the two children together, but Colin, in his Rajah-like way, informs them that Mary and he are now friends, and will see each other whenever they please. The doctor tells Colin that he mustn't forget that he is ill. Colin, his strange eyes glittering, tells him that that is precisely why he loves for Mary to visit him: she makes him forget his illness.

Mary and Colin's friendship is only possible because they are so similar in temperament and circumstances. Mary's statement that she and Colin "stared" at each other bears this idea out, in that Colin does not mind being looked at by her because she too has been a secret. The word "stare" here also implies an equal, reciprocal relation: Colin is not merely a spectacle to Mary, any more than she is a spectacle to him. They meet on equal footing, as two ten-year-old children; there is no pity on either side. Mary's lack of pity is beneficial to Colin, even as it empowers her to disobey his commands. Mary vows that she will not go to Colin if he tries to command her. This is decision is in stark contrast to the complete obedience of the servants, who have no choice but to comply with Colin's every whim--like the Indian rajah's slaves, they depend upon him for their very survival. The extreme class inequality between Colin and his servants is evidenced by the fact that the virtuous Martha could lose her position at Colin's whim, thereby casting her family of fourteen into starvation. In Martha's extraordinary phrase, " souls are not  own": these, too, belong to Master Colin. Though the novel does not explicitly criticize this terrible inequality in turn-of-the-century British society, the modern American reader cannot help marveling at it. This chapter provides the fullest elaboration of Christian Science principles thus far. The idea that Colin only became ill because of the anxiety that attended his birth and early childhood arises out of the Christian Scientist notion that negative thinking, in and of itself, is enough to cause disease. A number of people  express the belief that Colin would live if he only stopped thinking about death and "made up his mind" to survive. This provides the converse of the Christian Scientist idea elaborated above, which holds that positive thinking is the most powerful healing force. This is why Colin says, at chapter's end, that his "forgetting" of his illness is the source of Mary's excellent effect upon him: she makes it possible for him to silence his negative thoughts. This chapter also implies that the agents of Colin's rebirth will be extremely similar to Mistress Mary's: Mary uses stories of the Sowerbys, the garden, the moor, and the person of Dickon to engage and revitalize Colin, because these things attended her own re-awakening. Mary says that Dickon could help Colin decide to live because "he is always talking about live things"--Dickon would also make it impossible for Colin to think negative thoughts.