eafbuds 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 fight 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," he said. "I
warrant it's been goin' on in th' same way every year since th' world
was begun. They've got their way o' thinkin' and doin' things an' a
body had better not meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easi