“I’m givin’ thee a bit o’ Yorkshire,” answered Mary triumphantly.  “I canna’ talk as graidely as Dickon an’ Martha can but tha’ sees I can shape a bit.  Doesn’t tha’ understand a bit o’ Yorkshire when tha’ hears it?  An’ tha’ a Yorkshire lad thysel’ bred an’ born!  Eh!  I wonder tha’rt not ashamed o’ thy face.”

And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could not stop themselves and they laughed until the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening the door to come in drew back into the corridor and stood listening amazed.

“Well, upon my word!” she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshire herself because there was no one to hear her and she was so astonished.  “Whoever heard th’ like!  Whoever on earth would ha’ thought it!”

There was so much to talk about.  It seemed as if Colin could never hear enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot and Nut and Shell and the pony whose name was Jump.  Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump.  He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose.  He was rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough and wiry as if the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel springs.  He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment he saw Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his head across his shoulder and then Dickon had talked into his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies and puffs and snorts.  Dickon had made him give Mary his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle.

“Does he really understand everything Dickon says?” Colin asked.

“It seems as if he does,” answered Mary.  “Dickon says anything will understand if you’re friends with it for sure, but you have to be friends for sure.”

Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking.

“I wish I was friends with things,” he said at last, “but I’m not.  I never had anything to be friends with, and I can’t bear people.”

“Can’t you bear me?” asked Mary.

“Yes, I can,” he answered.  “It’s very funny but I even like you.”

“Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him,” said Mary.  “He said he’d warrant we’d both got the same nasty tempers.  I think you are like him too.  We are all three alike—­you and I and Ben Weatherstaff.  He said we were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.  But I don’t feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin and Dickon.”

“Did you feel as if you hated people?”

“Yes,” answered Mary without any affectation.  “I should have detested you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon.”

Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.

“Mary,” he said, “I wish I hadn’t said what I did about sending Dickon away.  I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at you but—­but perhaps he is.”