The Secret Garden — Chapter 16

About This Passage

Burnett shows us the particular kind of angry person Mary still is. Her passion is silent — it does not explode, it goes cold and stubborn. This is exactly the old Mary, the India-Mary who froze rather than fought, showing up inside the new Mary who has friends and a garden. The threat she makes — ‘I’ll never come into this room again’ — is the threat of a child who, only a few months ago, had no one she cared enough about to miss.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 16 carefully in your own words. Begin with Mary’s long, busy day in the garden with Dickon, Captain, and Soot; then move to the fight with Colin over who is more selfish and whether Dickon is an angel or a common cottage boy; then to Colin throwing his pillow; then the laughing nurse in the hallway; then the box of presents from Mr. Craven; and end with Mary’s ‘perhaps, just perhaps’ decision.

Discussion Questions

1. When Mary tells Colin that Dickon is an angel and a thousand times better than a Rajah, Colin answers that Dickon is only a common cottage boy off the moor. What does this argument between Mary and Colin reveal about how differently they have come to measure what makes a person important — and which measure does the chapter seem to trust?
2. The nurse laughs in the hallway after the fight and says a young vixen of a sister ‘would be the saving of him.’ Why do you think a trained nurse, who ought to be scolding two children for fighting, is instead glad they fought — and what does that tell you about what she has understood about Colin that the doctor has not?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide