"I'm keepin' secrets all th' time," he said. "If
I couldn't keep secrets from th' other lads, secrets
about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests, an' wild
things' holes, there'd be naught safe on th' moor.
Aye, I can keep secrets."

Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand
and clutch his sleeve but she did it.

"I've stolen a garden," she said very fast. "It
isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants
it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it.
Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't
know."

She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had
ever felt in her life.

"I don't care, I don't care! Nobody has any
right to take it from me when I care about it and
they don't. They're letting it die, all shut in by
itself," she ended passionately, and she threw her
arms over her face and burst out crying -- poor
little Mistress Mary.

Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and
rounder.

"Eh-h-h!" he said, drawing his exclamation
out slowly, and the way he did it meant both wonder
and sympathy.

"I've nothing to do," said Mary. "Nothing
belongs to me. I found it myself and I got into
it myself. I was only just like the robin, and
they wouldn't take it from the robin."

[[126]]

p125 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p126w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p127

v?