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

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

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

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

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

“Perhaps they are,” said Dr. Craven.  “Let them laugh.”

CHAPTER XXV

THE CURTAIN

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

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