There were bare flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly.

There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were more bushy than elsewhere.

It seemed as if for a long time that part had been neglected.

The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat, but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all.
A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff, Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why it was so.

She had just paused and was looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward to look at her with his small head on one side.
"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you ?" And it did not seem at all queer to her that she spoke to him as if she were sure that he would understand and answer her.
He did answer.