The Secret Garden

ttle thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father ha

she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig a

e awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when s

the strange woman. "I will not l

when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more

uld tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was ma

e said, because to call a native

from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib-Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else-was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate littl

d? Oh, is it?" Ma

bling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You oug

hib wrung

"I only stayed to go to that sill

ers that she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to fo

boy officer. "You did not say it h

ed. "Come with me! Come with me!" a

people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts. B

unds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though a partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It was sweet, an

so heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails and th

There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one. The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and she ha

en she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a

. "It sounds as if there were no one

ungalow and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them and they seemed to open doors and look into rooms. "What desolatio

d was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer s

child here! A child alone! In a plac

man was very rude to call her father's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep

laimed the man, turning to his compani

ry said, stamping her foo

at her very sadly. Mary even thought she sa

he said. "There is

ht, and that the few native servants who had not died also had left the house as quickly as they could get out of it, none of them even remembering that t