CHAPTER X 85
thought of this. She felt miserable. And she felt as if she went red and then pale.
" Tha ' s got a bit o ' garden, hasn ' t tha '?" Dickon said.
It was true that she had turned red and then pale. Dickon saw her do it, and as she still said nothing, he began to be puzzled.
" Wouldn ' t they give thee a bit?" he asked. " Hasn ' t tha ' got any yet?" She held her hands even tighter and turned her eyes toward him.
" I don ' t know anything about boys," she said slowly. " Could you keep a secret, if I told you one? It ' s a great secret. I don ' t know what I should do if any one found it out. I believe I should die!" She said the last sentence quite fiercely.
Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his rough head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly.
" 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