"I dare say she did," she said. "You may fancy she did. If you fancy all the nicest and prettiest things you know, you will not be wrong."
"Oh," said Tom, "that's very nice. We can make plays to ourselves about Letty's garden. Did she keep going till she was big? Did she never lose the key?"
"Never," said Miss Goldy-hair. "She never lost the key. And she went not only when she was big, but when she was old, quite old. Indeed she got fonder and fonder of it the longer she lived, and it helped her through a hard and often suffering life. And I don't know but what in quite old age her visits to the garden were the happiest of all."
"Miss Goldy-hair," I said, "isn't there something to find out like in the story of Letty?"
Miss Goldy-hair smiled.
"Think about it," she said. "I suspect you will be able to tell me something if you do."
But the boys didn't care to find out anything else. They thought it was great fun to play at Letty and the dove, and they pretended to get into the garden through the door of the cupboard where our cloaks hung. And the play lasted them for a good while without their getting tired of it, and Miss Goldy-hair was quite pleased, and said that was one way of turning the key in the lock, and not a bad way either for such little boys. Her saying that puzzled me a little at first, but then it came clearer to me that by the beautiful garden she meant all sweet and pretty fancies and thoughts which help to brighten our lives, and that these will come to children and big people too whose hearts and minds are good and gentle and kind.
The next day Tom was better, and two or three days after that we went at last to dinner and tea at Miss Goldy-hair's. If I were to tell you all we did, and what pretty things she showed us, and how delighted Racey was with the inside of her air-garden, it would take a whole other book. For just fancy, we have counted over the lines and the pages I have written, and there is actually enough to make a whole little book, and just in case, you know, of its ever coming to be printed, it's better for me to leave it the right size. And besides that, I don't know that I have very much more to tell that would be interesting, for the happy days that now began for us passed very much like each other in many ways. Our new nurse came and she turned out very kind, and I think she was more sensible than poor Pierson in some ways, for she managed to get on better with Mrs. Partridge. But as for poor Mrs. Partridge, she didn't trouble us much, for her rheumatism got so very bad that all that winter she couldn't walk up-stairs though she managed to fiddle about down-stairs in her own rooms and to keep on the housekeeping. And this, by the by, brings me to the one big thing that happened, which you will see all came from something that I told you about almost at the beginning of this little story.
All through this winter, as you will have known without my telling you, of course our happiness came mostly from Miss Goldy-hair. She didn't often come to see us after Tom got better, but at least twice a week we went to see her. And what happy days those were! It was she that helped us with everything—she held Racey's hand for him to write a letter "his own self," to mother; she showed me how to make, oh! such a pretty handkerchief-case to send mother for her birthday; and taught Tom how to plait a lovely little mat with bright-coloured papers. She helped me with my music, which I found very tiresome and difficult at first, and she was so dear and good to us that when at last as we got to understand things better, it had to be explained to us that not three months but three years must pass before we could hope to see papa and mother again, it did not seem nearly so terrible as it would have done but for having her. She put it such a nice way.
"You can learn so much in three years," she said. "Think how much you can do to please your mother in that time." And it made us feel a new interest in our lessons and in everything we had to learn.