“Very well,” answered Mary.

The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone Colin pulled Mary’s hand again.

“I almost told,” he said; “but I stopped myself in time.  I won’t talk and I’ll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lot of nice things to tell me.  Have you—­do you think you have found out anything at all about the way into the secret garden?”

Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heart relented.

“Ye-es,” she answered, “I think I have.  And if you will go to sleep I will tell you to-morrow.”

His hand quite trembled.

“Oh, Mary!” he said.  “Oh, Mary!  If I could get into it I think I should live to grow up!  Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah song—­you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you imagine it looks like inside?  I am sure it will make me go to sleep.”

“Yes,” answered Mary.  “Shut your eyes.”

He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speak very slowly and in a very low voice.

“I think it has been left alone so long—­that it has grown all into a lovely tangle.  I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the ground—­almost like a strange gray mist.  Some of them have died but many—­are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses.  I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark.  Now the spring has begun—­perhaps—­perhaps—­”

The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she saw it and went on.

“Perhaps they are coming up through the grass—­perhaps there are clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones—­even now.  Perhaps the leaves are beginning to break out and uncurl—­and perhaps—­the gray is changing and a green gauze veil is creeping—­and creeping over—­everything.  And the birds are coming to look at it—­because it is—­so safe and still.  And perhaps—­perhaps—­perhaps—­” very softly and slowly indeed, “the robin has found a mate—­and is building a nest.”

And Colin was asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII

“THA’ MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME”

Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning.  She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told her that though Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying.  Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened.