e heard people say I
shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now
they think I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin. He
is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my father
is dead. I should think he wouldn't want me to live."

"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to die.
When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know
who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget
the garden.

"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about
that garden. Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted to
see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want the key dug
up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in my
chair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them open
the door."

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like
stars and looked more immense than ever.

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I
will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be
spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again
feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make
them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret
again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if there
was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could
find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind
us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and
pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if
we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it
all come alive--"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went o