Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the housewhen they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonderif it might not be wise to send some one out to explorethe garden paths. When Colin was brought back to hisroom the poor man looked him over seriously.

　　"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You mustnot overexert yourself.""I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well.

　　Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as inthe afternoon.""I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven.

　　"I am afraid it would not be wise.""It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colinquite seriously. "I am going."Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiaritieswas that he did not know in the least what a rude littlebrute he was with his way of ordering people about.

　　He had lived on a sort of desert island all his lifeand as he had been the king of it he had made his ownmanners and had had no one to compare himself with.

　　Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since shehad been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered thather own manners had not been of the kind which is usualor popular. Having made this discovery she naturallythought it of enough interest to communicate to Colin.

　　So she sat and looked at him curiously for a few minutesafter Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to make him askher why she was doing it and of course she did.

　　"What are you looking at me for?" he said.

　　"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven.""So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an airof some satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaiteat all now I'm not going to die.""I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary,"but I was thinking just then that it must have been veryhorrid to have had to be polite for ten years to a boywho was always rude. I would never have done it.""Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.

　　"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slappingsort of man," said Mary, "he would have slapped you.""But he daren't," said Colin.

　　"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking thething out quite without prejudice. "Nobody ever daredto do anything you didn't like--because you were goingto die and things like that. You were such a poor thing.""But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not goingto be a poor thing. I won't let people think I'm one.

　　I stood on my feet this afternoon.""It is always having your own way that has made youso queer," Mary went on, thinking aloud.

　　Colin turned his head, frowning.

　　"Am I queer?" he demanded.

　　"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross,"she added impartially, "because so am I queer--and so isBen Weatherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before Ibegan to like people and before I found the garden.""I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not goingto be," and he frowned again with determination.

　　He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while andthen Mary saw his beautiful smile begin and graduallychange his whole face.

　　"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every dayto the garden. There is Magic in there--good Magic,you know, Mary. I am sure there is." "So am I,"said Mary.

　　"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretendit is. Something is there--something!""It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as whiteas snow."They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like itin the months that followed--the wonderful months--theradiant months--the amazing ones. Oh! the thingswhich happened in that garden! If you have never hada garden you cannot understand, and if you have hada garden you will know that it would take a whole bookto describe all that came to pass there. At first itseemed that green things would never cease pushingtheir way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds,even in the crevices of the walls. Then the green thingsbegan to show buds and the buds began to unfurl andshow color, every shade of blue, every shade of purple,every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days flowershad been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner.

　　Ben Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scrapedout mortar from between the bricks of the wall and madepockets of earth for lovely clinging things to grow on.

　　Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass in sheaves,and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armiesof the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniumsor columbines or campanulas.

　　"She was main fond o' them--she was," Ben Weatherstaff said.

　　"She liked them things as was allus pointin' up to th'

　　blue sky, she used to tell. Not as she was one o'

　　them as looked down on th' earth--not her. She just lovedit but she said as th' blue sky allus looked so joyful."The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairieshad tended them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced in thebreeze by the score, gaily defying flowers which had livedin the garden for years and which it might be confessedseemed rather to wonder how such new people had got there.

　　And the roses--the roses! Rising out of the grass,tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunksand hanging from their branches, climbing up the wallsand spreading over them with long garlands fallingin cascades --they came alive day by day, hour by hour.

　　Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first butswelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurledinto cups of scent delicately spilling themselves overtheir brims and filling the garden air.

　　Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place.

　　Every morning he was brought out and every hour of each daywhen it didn't rain he spent in the garden. Even graydays pleased him. He would lie on the grass "watchingthings growing," he said. If you watched long enough,he declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves.

　　Also you could make the acquaintance of strange busy insectthings running about on various unknown but evidentlyserious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of strawor feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if theywere trees from whose tops one could look out to explorethe country. A mole throwing up its mound at the end of itsburrow and making its way out at last with the long-nailedpaws which looked so like elfish hands, had absorbed himone whole morning. Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees'

　　ways, frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave hima new world to explore and when Dickon revealed themall and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways,squirrels' ways, and trout' and water-rats' and badgers'

　　ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and thinkover.

　　And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that hehad really once stood on his feet had set Colin thinkingtremendously and when Mary told him of the spell shehad worked he was excited and approved of it greatly.

　　He talked of it constantly.

　　"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,"he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it islike or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to saynice things are going to happen until you make them happen.

　　I am going to try and experiment"The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sentat once for Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as hecould and found the Rajah standing on his feet under a treeand looking very grand but also very beautifully smiling.

　　"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want youand Dickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to mebecause I am going to tell you something very important.""Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touchinghis forehead. (One of the long concealed charms of BenWeatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had once run awayto sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like a sailor.)"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah.

　　"When I grow up I am going to make great scientificdiscoveries and I am going to begin now with this experiment""Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly,though this was the first time he had heard of greatscientific discoveries.

　　It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either,but even at this stage she had begun to realize that,queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singularthings and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy.

　　When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on youit seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourselfthough he was only ten years old--going on eleven.

　　At this moment he was especially convincing because hesuddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sortof speech like a grown-up person.

　　"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make,"he went on, "will be about Magic. Magic is a great thingand scarcely any one knows anything about it except a fewpeople in old books--and Mary a little, because she wasborn in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickonknows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it.

　　He charms animals and people. I would never have let himcome to see me if he had not been an animal charmer--whichis a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal.

　　I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have notsense enough to get hold of it and make it do things forus--like electricity and horses and steam."This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff becamequite excited and really could not keep still. "Aye, aye,sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight.

　　"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead,"the orator proceeded. "Then something began pushing thingsup out of the soil and making things out of nothing.

　　One day things weren't there and another they were.

　　I had never watched things before and it made me feelvery curious. Scientific people are always curious and Iam going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself,`What is it? What is it?' It's something. It can'tbe nothing! I don't know its name so I call it Magic.

　　I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon haveand from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too.

　　Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since I'vebeen in the garden I've looked up through the trees atthe sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happyas if something were pushing and drawing in my chestand making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing anddrawing and making things out of nothing. Everything ismade out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds,badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it mustbe all around us. In this garden--in all the places.

　　The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and knowI am going to live to be a man. I am going to make thescientific experiment of trying to get some and put itin myself and make it push and ............