Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some one out to explore the garden paths. When Gwendolen was brought back to her room the poor man looked her over seriously.
"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert yourself."
"I am not tired at all," said Gwendolen. "It has made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."
"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid it would not be wise."
"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Gwendolen quite seriously. "I am going."
Even Toby had found out that one of Gwendolen's chief peculiarities was that she did not know in the least what a rude little brute she was with her way of ordering people about. She had lived on a sort of desert island all her life and as she had been the Queen of it she had made her own manners and had had no one to compare herself with. Toby had indeed been rather like her himself and since he had been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that his own manners had not been of the kind which is usual or popular. Having made this discovery he naturally thought it of enough interest to communicate to Gwendolen. So he sat and looked at her curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. He wanted to make her ask him why he was doing it and of course she did.
"What are you looking at me for?" she said.
"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven."
"So am I," said Gwendolen calmly, but not without an air of some satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to die."
"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Toby, "but I was thinking just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be polite for ten years to a girl who was always rude. I would never have done it."
"Am I rude?" Gwendolen inquired undisturbedly.
"If you had been his own girl and he had been a slapping sort of man," said Toby, "he would have slapped you."
"But he daren't," said Gwendolen.
"No, he daren't," answered Master Toby, thinking the thing out quite without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't like--because you were going to die and things like that. You were such a poor thing."
"But," announced Gwendolen stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing. I won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon."
"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Toby went on, thinking aloud.
Gwendolen turned her head, frowning.
"Am I queer?" she demanded.
"Yes," answered Toby, "very. But you needn't be cross," he added impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is Beth Weatherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I found the garden."
"I don't want to be queer," said Gwendolen. "I am not going to be," and she frowned again with determination.
She was a very proud girl. She lay thinking for a while and then Toby saw her beautiful smile begin and gradually change her whole face.
"I shall stop being queer," she said, "if I go every day to the garden. There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Toby. I am sure there is." "So am I," said Toby.
"Even if it isn't real Magic," Gwendolen said, "we can pretend it is. Something is there--something!"
"It's Magic," said Toby, "but not black. It's as white as snow."
