The secret garden

A YOUNG RAJAH 185dying; I don't like it. Let us talk about living.Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And thenwe will look at your pictures."It was the best thing she could have said. Totalk about Dickon meant to talk about the moorand about the cottage and the fourteen people wholived in it on sixteen shillings a week and thechildren who got fat on the moor grass like thewild ponies. And about Dickon's mother andthe skipping-rope and the moor with the sun onit and about pale green points sticking up outof the black sod. And it was all so alive thatMary talked more than she had ever talked beforeand Colin both talked and listened as he hadnever done either before. And they both beganto laugh over nothings as children will when theyare happy together. And they laughed so thatin the end they were making as much noise as ifthey had been two ordinary healthy natural tenyear-oldcreatures instead of a hard, little, unlovinggirl and a sickly boy who believed that hewas going to die.They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgotthe pictures and they forgot about the time.They had been laughing quite loudly over BenWeatherstaff and his robin and Colin was actuallysitting up as if he had forgotten about his weakback when he suddenly remembered something.