"Open the window!" he added, laughing half
with joyful excitement and half at his own fancy.
"Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!"

And though he laughed, Mary was at the window
in a moment and in a moment more it was
opened wide and freshness and softness and
scents and birds' songs were pouring through.

"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your
back and draw in long breaths of it. That's what
Dickon does when he's lying on the moor. He
says he feels it in his veins and it makes him
strong and he feels as if he could live forever and
ever. Breathe it and breathe it."

She was only repeating what Dickon had told
her, but she caught Colin's fancy.

"'Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel
like that?" he said, and he did as she told him,
drawing in long deep breaths over and over again
until he felt that something quite new and delightful
was happening to him.

Mary was at his bedside again.

"Things are crowding up out of the earth,"
she ran on in a hurry. "And there are flowers
uncurling and buds on everything and the green
veil has covered nearly all the gray and the birds
are in such a hurry about their nests for fear they
may be too late that some of them are even fighting
for places in the secret garden. And the rose-bushes

[[247]]

p246 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p247w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p248

v?