Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he
said hurriedly:
In the garden! In the garden!
Yes, hurried on Colin. It was the garden that did it and Mary and
Dickon and the creatures and the Magic. No one knows. We kept it to
tell you when you came. I m well, I can beat Mary in a race. I m going
to be an athlete.
He said it all so like a healthy boy his face flushed, his words
tumbling over each other in his eagerness that Mr. Craven s soul shook
with unbelieving joy.
Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father s arm.
Aren t you glad, Father? he ended. Aren t you glad? I m going to
live forever and ever and ever!
Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy s shoulders and held him
still. He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.
Take me into the garden, my boy, he said at last. And tell me all
about it.
And so they led him in.
The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue
and flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies
standing together lilies which were white or white and ruby. He
remembered well when the first of them had been planted that just at
this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves.
Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening
the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel that one, stood in an
embowered temple of gold. The newcomer stood silent just as the
children had done when they came into its grayness. He looked round and
round.
I thought it would be dead, he said.
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