close against the bosom under the blue cloak as if he had been Dickon s
brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes.
Eh! dear lad! she said. Thy own mother s in this ere very garden, I
do believe. She couldna keep out of it. Thy father mun come back to
thee he mun!
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN THE GARDEN
In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have
been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out
than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things
still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse
to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to
hope it can be done, then they see it can be done then it is done and
all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new
things people began to find out in the last century was that
thoughts just mere thoughts are as powerful as electric batteries as
good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad
thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a
scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after
it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.
So long as Mistress Mary s mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about
her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to
be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced,
sickly, bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very
kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push
her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with
robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed
old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime
and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor
boy and his creatures, there was no room left for the disagreeable
thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow
and tired.
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