DICKON The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden.

The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it.

She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was.

It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place.

The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories.