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

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

“Who is coming in here?” he said quickly.  “Who is it?”

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

“It’s Mother—­that’s who it is!” he cried and he went across the grass at a run.

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

“It’s Mother!” Dickon said again when they met half-way.  “I knowed tha’ wanted to see her an’ I told her where th’ door was hid.”

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

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

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

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

“Are you surprised because I am so well?” he asked.

She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes.

“Aye, that I am!” she said; “but tha’rt so like thy mother tha’ made my heart jump.”

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

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

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

Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.