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 quiet 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 to-day.”

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.