She put her hands under the leaves and began to pulland push them aside. Thick as the ivy hung, it nearlyall was a loose and swinging curtain, though some had creptover wood and iron. Mary's heart began to thump and herhands to shake a little in her delight and excitement PHD hong kong.
The robin kept singing and twittering away and tiltinghis head on one side, as if he were as excited as she was.
What was this under her hands which was square and madeof iron and which her fingers found a hole in?
It was the lock of the door which had been closed tenyears and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the keyand found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in andturned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.
And then she took a long breath and looked behindher up the long walk to see if any one was coming.
No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed,and she took another long breath, because she could nothelp it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivyand pushed back the door which opened slowly--slowly.
Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her,and stood with her back against it, looking about herand breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder,and delight.
She was standing inside the secret garden.
Chapter 9 The Strangest House Any One Ever Lived In
It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking placeany one could imagine. The high walls which shut itin were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roseswhich were so thick that they were matted together wset level 4.
Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seena great many roses in India. All the ground was coveredwith grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumpsof bushes which were surely rosebushes if they were alive.
There were numbers of standard roses which had so spreadtheir branches that they were like little trees.
, and one of thethings which made the place look strangest and loveliestwas that climbing roses had run all over them and swungdown long tendrils which made light swaying curtains,and here and there they had caught at each other orat a far-reaching branch and had crept from one treeto another and made lovely bridges of themselves.
There were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Marydid not know whether they were dead or alive, but theirthin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sortof hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees,and even brown grass, where they had fallen from theirfastenings and run along the ground Company Secretary Service hong kong. It was this hazy tanglefrom tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious.
Mary had thought it must be different from other gardenswhich had not been left all by themselves so long;and indeed it was different from any other place she hadever seen in her life.
"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!"Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness.
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