LITMIR.BIZ

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was someone crying-there was-there was!” she said to herself.

      Chapter VII

      The key of the garden

      Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.

      “Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”

      A brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. In India skies were hot and blazing. The world of the moor looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

      “I thought perhaps it always rained in England,” Mary said.

      “Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her heels.

      “Can I ever get there?” asked Mary wistfully, looking through her window at the far-off blue. It was new and big and wonderful.

      “I don’t know,” answered Martha. “Five miles, I think.”

      “I want to see your cottage.”

      Martha stared at her.

      “I’ll ask my mother about it,” Martha said. “Mrs. Medlock likes my mother. Perhaps she can talk to her.”

      “I like your mother, too” said Mary.

      “Of course,” agreed Martha.

      “And I like Dickon,” added Mary.

      “Well,” said Martha stoutly, “all the birds like him and the rabbits and wild sheep and the ponies, and the foxes.”

      “But he won’t like me,” said Mary. “No one does.”

      “Do you like yourself?” Martha inquired.

      Mary hesitated a moment.

      “Not at all-really,” she answered.

      Martha went away after the breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage, and she was going to help her mother.

      Mary went out into the garden. She went into the first kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other gardeners.

      She began to like the garden and Ben Weatherstaff – like the robin and Dickon and Martha’s mother. She was beginning to like Martha, too. She went outside the long, ivy-covered wall over which she could see the tree-tops.

      She looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side. The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers, but there were tall and low shrubs. The robin hopped about under them. He stopped on it to look for a worm. A dog scratched quite a deep hole there.

      Mary looked at it and saw something in the soil. It was an old key!

      Mary stood up and looked at it.

      “Perhaps it is the key to the secret garden!” she said in a whisper.

      Mary put the key in her pocket. She will always carry it with her when she goes out – to find the hidden door.

      Chapter VIII

      The Robin who showed the way

      “I’ve brought you a present,” Martha said in the morning, with a cheerful grin.

      “A present!” exclaimed Mary.

      “Yes. It’s a skipping-rope.”

      She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end. Mary gazed at it with a mystified expression.

      “What is it for?” she asked curiously.

      “Just watch me!” cried out Martha.

      And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip.

      “I could skip longer than that,” Martha said when she stopped. “But I’m fat now.”

      Mary was excited.

      “It looks nice,” she said. “Do you think I could ever skip like that?”

      “You just try it,” urged Martha.

      Mary’s arms and legs were weak, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop. She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something and turned back rather slowly.

      “Martha,” she said, “the money for this rope was your wages. Thank you.”

      She said it stiffly and held out her hand[17] because she did not know what else to do.

      Martha laughed. Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.

      The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red. The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and looked at her with a curious expression.

      “Well!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word![18] You have child’s blood in your veins instead of sour buttermilk.”

      “I never skipped before,” Mary said. “I’m just beginning.”

      “Keep on,” said Ben.

      Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard. The robin followed her and greeted her with a chirp. The girl laughed.

      “Yesterday you showed me the key,” she said. “Show me the door today!”

      The robin flew to the top of the wall and sang a loud, lovely trill. One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk. It waved the branches of the trees. Mary stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails. She saw a round knob which was covered by the leaves. It was the knob of a door.

      She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside. Mary’s heart began to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron?

      It was the lock of the door! She put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and put the key in and turned it.

      The door opened slowly. She slipped through it, and shut it behind her. She was standing inside the secret garden.

      Chapter IX

      A very strange house

      It was the most mysterious-looking place anyone can imagine. The high walls were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she saw many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass. There were many trees in the garden, too. here were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive.

      “How still it is!” she whispered. “How still!”

      Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin did not flutter his wings; he sat and looked at Mary.

      “No wonder,” she whispered again. “I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.”

      She moved away from the door. She was glad that there was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the gray arches between the trees.

      “Are they are all dead?” she said. “Is it a dead garden?”

      She was inside the wonderful secret garden. The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky seemed even more brilliant than it was over the moor. The robin flew after her from one bush to another. Everything was strange and silent, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.

      She did not want it to be a dead garden. Her skipping-rope hung over her arm. She came near the alcove. There was a flower-bed in it, and she knelt down.

      “These

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