u were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one
of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall
over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked
up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and
it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare
flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to
peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed
her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her
with delight that she almost trembled a little.

"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than
anything else in the world!"

She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail
and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like
satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and
so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and
like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had
ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and
closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like
robin sounds.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as
that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand
toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because
he was a real person--only nicer than any other person in the world. She
was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the
perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were
tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and
as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile
of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The
earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole
and he had scratched quite a deep hole.

Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she
looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was
something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up
into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was
more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had
been buried a long time.

Mistress Mar