Mary made no response. She went down the path and through
the second green door. There, she found more walls
and winter vegetables and glass frames, but in the second
wall there was another green door and it was not open.
Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for
ten years. As she was not at all a timid child and always
did what she wanted to do, Mary went to the green door
and turned the handle. She hoped the door would not open
because she wanted to be sure she had found the mysterious
garden--but it did open quite easily and she walked
through it and found herself in an orchard. There were
walls all round it also and trees trained against them,
and there were bare fruit-trees growing in the winter-browned
grass--but there was no green door to be seen anywhere.
Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the
upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall
did not seem to end with the orchard but to extend
beyond it as if it enclosed a place at the other side.
She could see the tops of trees above the wall,
and when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright
red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one of them,
and suddenly he burst into his winter song--almost
as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to her.

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful,
friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even
a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed
house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this
one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself.