The Secret Garden

Two days later, the rain stops, and the moor no longer looks gloomy or dreary. Martha promises the moor will soon be covered in flowers, and Mary asks if she will ever be able to go there like Dickon. Martha is doubtful because Mary isn’t fit and strong enough to walk that far. It is five miles to Martha’s family cottage on the edge of the moor, but Mary insists that she’d like to see the place. Martha promises to ask her mother how it might be managed.

Mary says she likes Martha’s mother and Dickon, even though she’s never met them. Martha wonders what Dickon would think of Mary. Mary replies that Dickon wouldn’t like her because no one does. Martha prompts Mary about her own self-view, and Mary concludes that she doesn’t like herself, either.

It is Martha’s day off, so after giving Mary her breakfast, Martha leaves, looking forward to a day spent helping her mother with the washing and the baking. Feeling lonely, Mary goes out into the garden. Passing the ivy-covered garden wall, she encounters the robin and follows him to a bare flower bed. He hops onto a little pile of upturned soil, and Mary sees an old key half-buried in the dirt.