h' door in
th' sun, lookin' so glad an' comfortable."

They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many
wonders that they were obliged to remind themselves that they must
whisper or speak low. He showed her swelling leaf-buds on rose branches
which had seemed dead. He showed her ten thousand new green points
pushing through the mould. They put their eager young noses close to the
earth and sniffed its warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled
and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary's hair was as tumbled
as Dickon's and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.

There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in
the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it
was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted
through the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of
red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak. Dickon stood
quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly
found themselves laughing in a church.

"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire. "We munnot scarce
breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin' when I seed him last. It's Ben
Weatherstaff's robin. He's buildin' his nest. He'll stay here if us
don't flight him."

They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.

"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon.
"He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin'
now. He'll be a good bit different till all this is over. He's settin'
up housekeepin'. He'll be shyer an' readier to take things ill. He's got
no time for visitin' an' gossipin'. Us must keep still a bit an' try to
look as if us was grass an' trees an' bushes. Then when he's got used to
seein' us I'll chirp a bit an' he'll know us'll not be in his way."

Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to,
how to try to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the
queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the
world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched
him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it was possible for him to
quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat
wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a
softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could.

"It's part o' th' springtime, this nest-buildin' is