It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking placeany one could imagine. The high walls which shut itin were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roseswhich were so thick that they were matted together.

　　Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seena great many roses in India. All the ground was coveredwith grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumpsof bushes which were surely rosebushes if they were alive.

　　There were numbers of standard roses which had so spreadtheir branches that they were like little trees.

　　There were other trees in the garden, and one of thethings which made the place look strangest and loveliestwas that climbing roses had run all over them and swungdown long tendrils which made light swaying curtains,and here and there they had caught at each other orat a far-reaching branch and had crept from one treeto another and made lovely bridges of themselves.

　　There were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Marydid not know whether they were dead or alive, but theirthin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sortof hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees,and even brown grass, where they had fallen from theirfastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy tanglefrom tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious.

　　Mary had thought it must be different from other gardenswhich had not been left all by themselves so long;and indeed it was different from any other place she hadever seen in her life.

　　"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!"Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness.

　　The robin, who had flown to his treetop, was stillas all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings;he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.

　　"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I amthe first person who has spoken in here for ten years."She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if shewere afraid of awakening some one. She was glad that therewas grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds.

　　She walked under one of the fairy-like gray archesbetween the trees and looked up at the sprays and tendrilswhich formed them. "I wonder if they are all quite dead,"she said. "Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn't."If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have toldwhether the wood was alive by looking at it, but shecould only see that there were only gray or brown spraysand branches and none showed any signs of even a tinyleaf-bud anywhere.

　　But she was inside the wonderful garden and she couldcome through the door under the ivy any time and shefelt as if she had found a world all her own.

　　The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high archof blue sky over this particular piece of Misselthwaiteseemed even more brilliant and soft than it was overthe moor. The robin flew down from his tree-top andhopped about or flew after her from one bush to another.

　　He chirped a good deal and had a very busy air, as if hewere showing her things. Everything was strange andsilent and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away fromany one, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.

　　All that troubled her was her wish that she knew whetherall the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of them hadlived and might put out leaves and buds as the weathergot warmer. She did not want it to be a quite dead garden.

　　If it were a quite alive garden, how wonderful it would be,and what thousands of roses would grow on every side!

　　Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she camein and after she had walked about for a while she thoughtshe would skip round the whole garden, stopping when shewanted to look at things. There seemed to have beengrass paths here and there, and in one or two cornersthere were alcoves of evergreen with stone seats or tallmoss-covered flower urns in them.

　　As she came near the second of these alcoves shestopped skipping. There had once been a flowerbed in it,and she thought she saw something sticking out of theblack earth- -some sharp little pale green points.

　　She remembered what Ben Weatherstaff had said and sheknelt down to look at them.

　　"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might becrocuses or snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered.

　　She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scentof the damp earth. She liked it very much.

　　"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places,"she said. "I will go all over the garden and look."She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and kepther eyes on the ground. She looked in the old borderbeds and among the grass, and after she had gone round,trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so many more sharp,pale green points, and she had become quite excited again.

　　"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself.

　　"Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive."She did not know anything about gardening, but the grassseemed so thick in some of the places where the greenpoints were pushing their way through that she thoughtthey did not seem to have room enough to grow.

　　She searched about until she found a rather sharp pieceof wood and knelt down and dug and weeded out the weedsand grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

　　"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said,after she had finished with the first ones. "I amgoing to do ever so many more. I'll do all I can see.

　　If I haven't time today I can come tomorrow."She went from place to place, and dug and weeded,and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led onfrom bed to bed and into the grass under the trees.

　　The exercise made her so warm that she first threw hercoat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it shewas smiling down on to the grass and the pale green pointsall the time.

　　The robin was tremendously busy. He was very muchpleased to see gardening begun on his own estate.

　　He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardeningis done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turnedup with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creaturewho was not half Ben's size and yet had had the senseto come into his garden and begin at once.

　　Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was timeto go to her midday dinner. In fact, she was ratherlate in remembering, and when she put on her coatand hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could notbelieve that she had been working two or three hours.

　　She had been actually happy all the time; and dozensand dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seenin cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they hadlooked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

　　"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking allround at her new kingdom, and speaking to the treesand the rose-bushes as if they heard her.

　　Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed openthe slow old door and slipped through it under the ivy.

　　She had such red cheeks and such bright eyes and ate sucha dinner that Martha was delighted.

　　"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said.

　　"Eh! mother will be pleased when I tell her what th'

　　skippin'-rope's done for thee."In the course of her digging with her pointed stickMistress Mary had found herself digging up a sort of whiteroot rather like an onion. She had put it back in itsplace and patted the earth carefully down on it and justnow she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

　　"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that looklike onions?""They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o' spring flowersgrow from 'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops an'

　　crocuses an' th' big ones are narcissuses an' jonquilsand daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is lilies an'

　　purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a wholelot of 'em planted in our bit o' garden.""Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new ideataking possession of her.

　　"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk.

　　Mother says he just whispers things out o' th' ground.""Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years andyears if no one helped them?" inquired Mary anxiously.

　　"They're things as helps themselves," said Martha. "That's whypoor folk can afford to have 'em. If you don't trouble 'em,most of 'em'll work away und............