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the gardener’s ladder and spoke to him, laughing, and the gardener turned and looked down at her and nodded and pointed. When Aunt Fanny came up he turned back to the hedge and raised his clipper again. “Fancy,” Aunt Fanny said, pulling at her, “come away at once. We do not run and laugh before the gardeners,” she said severely but softly, “Fancy, we always observe decorum; I am displeased that you should have run away from me.”
    â€œI wanted to ask him the way,” Fancy said. She was walking quietly now, her cheeks faintly flushed from running. “Didn’t you think he was funny?”
    â€œI hardly noticed, Fancy. One does not—”
    â€œDressed funny, I mean? And his hat?”
    â€œI said, Fancy, I do not—”
    â€œLook at him, then.” Fancy stopped, and shook at Aunt Fanny. “Look and see how funny he is.”
    â€œLook back on a gardener? I?” Aunt Fanny gave Fancy an irritable little pull. “Fancy, behave yourself.”
    â€œHe’s gone now, anyway.” Fancy moved slightly ahead and then said, “Why, here’s the garden; I didn’t know we were so near it.” She moved between the arching branches overhead, the mist moving around her ankles, and Aunt Fanny, annoyed and frightened and tired, hurried to keep up with her; it would not do to let Fancy stray too far. A little girl and a defenseless woman, Aunt Fanny thought with sudden acute fear; strange gardeners around (and there
had
been something funny, Fancy was right—was it the turn of his head?), and neither of them sure of the way back.
    â€œPlease wait, Fancy,” she called, and followed, into the garden, and stopped. This was not her secret garden, this was not the garden which ought to have been at the end of the path they had taken, this was a garden so secret that Aunt Fanny wondered, shocked, if anyone had ever seen it before. Fancy, half-hidden in the mist, was dancing on the grass, and there were flowers, dull in the mist, but showing sullenly red and yellow and orange. Distantly, clouded, Aunt Fanny saw the hard whiteness of marble, and then through a break in the mist a narrow marble pillar. “Fancy,” she cried out, moving forward and holding her hands guardingly before her, “where are you?”
    â€œHere,” Fancy called back.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œIn the house.”
    The voice died away and Aunt Fanny, tangled in mist now, began to cry helplessly. “Fancy,” she said.
    â€œAunt Fanny,” but it came from far away.
    Stumbling, Aunt Fanny went forward, hands out, and touched marble, but it was warm and she took her hand away quickly; hideous, she thought, it’s been in the sun. Then she thought, why, this could be the summer house and I am only turned around; we could have strayed from the path and come into the garden by another way and
that
would be why it looked strange; this is certainly the summer house and it is silly of me to cry and stumble and be frightened. I shall go into the summer house, she thought, and sit down quietly on the bench, and when I have recovered myself I shall either call until Fancy finds her way to me—the wicked girl, to run away so—or I shall wait until this mist clears a little—and it
must
, of course; it is an early morning mist, a trifle; the sun will sweep it away; I have been in fogs many times worse than this and never been frightened; it was only because it was unexpected; I shall sit in the summer house until I am able to go on.
    For a minute she stood very still with her eyes closed, trying to remember precisely the secret garden so that she might go into the summer house correctly in the mist. I must not fall down, she thought, because I shall not be able to get up again; if I fall down it will really be quite serious; I would have to call for help.
    â€œFancy,” she called, “Fancy!”
    Moving blindly, trying, although she could