CHAPTER XIII 115
" It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. " The bulbs will live but the roses-- "
He stopped her again as excited as she was herself. " What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.
" They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."
" Is the spring coming?" he said. " What is it like? You don ' t see it in rooms if you are ill."
" It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary. " If the garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don ' t you see? Oh, don ' t you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?"
He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on his face.
" I never had a secret," he said, " except that one about not living to grow up. They don ' t know I know that, so it is a sort of secret. But I like this kind better."
" If you won ' t make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary, " perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime. And then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some boy who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a secret garden."
" I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy. " I should like that. I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."