“That’s what I thought,” said Mary.

Then there was a lovely breathless silence and the chair wheeled on.

“That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff works,” said Mary.

“Is it?” said Colin.

A few yards more and Mary whispered again.

“This is where the robin flew over the wall,” she said.

“Is it?” cried Colin.  “Oh!  I wish he’d come again!”

“And that,” said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a big lilac bush, “is where he perched on the little heap of earth and showed me the key.”

Then Colin sat up.

“Where?  Where?  There?” he cried, and his eyes were as big as the wolf’s in Red Riding-Hood, when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark on them.  Dickon stood still and the wheeled chair stopped.

“And this,” said Mary, stepping on to the bed close to the ivy, “is where I went to talk to him when he chirped at me from the top of the wall.  And this is the ivy the wind blew back,” and she took hold of the hanging green curtain.

“Oh! is it—­is it!” gasped Colin.

“And here is the handle, and here is the door.  Dickon push him in—­push him in quickly!”

And Dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push.

But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he gasped with delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the chair stopped as if by magic and the door was closed.  Not till then did he take them away and look round and round and round as Dickon and Mary had done.  And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents.  And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely touch.  And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him.  He looked so strange and different because a pink glow of color had actually crept all over him—­ivory face and neck and hands and all.

“I shall get well!  I shall get well!” he cried out.  “Mary!  Dickon!  I shall get well!  And I shall live forever and ever and ever!”

CHAPTER XXI

BEN WEATHERSTAFF

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.  One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East