“Mary,” said Colin, turning to her, “what is that thing you say in India when you have finished talking and want people to go?”

“You say, ‘You have my permission to go,’” answered Mary.

The Rajah waved his hand.

“You have my permission to go, Roach,” he said.  “But, remember, this is very important.”

“Caw—­Caw!” remarked the crow hoarsely but not impolitely.

“Very good, sir.  Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took him out of the room.

Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled until he almost laughed.

“My word!” he said, “he’s got a fine lordly way with him, hasn’t he?  You’d think he was a whole Royal Family rolled into one—­Prince Consort and all.”

“Eh!” protested Mrs. Medlock, “we’ve had to let him trample all over every one of us ever since he had feet and he thinks that’s what folks was born for.”

“Perhaps he’ll grow out of it, if he lives,” suggested Mr. Roach.

“Well, there’s one thing pretty sure,” said Mrs. Medlock.  “If he does live and that Indian child stays here I’ll warrant she teaches him that the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says.  And he’ll be likely to find out the size of his own quarter.”

Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions.

“It’s all safe now,” he said.  “And this afternoon I shall see it—­this afternoon I shall be in it!”

Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with Colin.  She did not think he looked tired but he was very quiet before their lunch came and he was quiet while they were eating it.  She wondered why and asked him about it.

“What big eyes you’ve got, Colin,” she said.  “When you are thinking they get as big as saucers.  What are you thinking about now?”

“I can’t help thinking about what it will look like,” he answered.

“The garden?” asked Mary.

“The springtime,” he said.  “I was thinking that I’ve really never seen it before.  I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at it.  I didn’t even think about it.”

“I never saw it in India because there wasn’t any,” said Mary.

Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.

“That morning when you ran in and said ‘It’s come!  It’s come!’ you made me feel quite queer.  It sounded as if things were coming with a great procession and big bursts and wafts of music.  I’ve a picture like it in one of my books—­crowds of lovely people and children with garlands and branches with blossoms on them, every one laughing and dancing and crowding and playing on pipes.  That was why I said, ’Perhaps we shall hear golden trumpets’ and told you to throw open the window.”

“How funny!” said Mary.  “That’s really just what it feels like.  And if all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds and wild creatures danced past at once, what a crowd it would be!  I’m sure they’d dance and sing and flute and that would be the wafts of music.”