The Secret Garden

her very much when she was gone. She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself, as she had always done. If she had b

oing to nice people, who would be polite to her and give her

e had five children nearly all the same age and they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bunga

was playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing the day the cholera broke out. She was making heaps of earth an

pretend it is a rockery?" he said. "There in

Mary. "I don't wa

tease. He was always teasing his sisters. He danced ro

Mary, quit

your ga

bells, and c

olds all

ang "Mistress Mary, quite contrary"; and after that as long as she stayed with them they called her "

Basil said to her, "at the end of

too," answered Mar

e. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You are not going t

ything about him

solate old house in the country and no one goes near him. He's so cross he won't let them, and they wouldn't come if he would let them. He's a hunchbac

ncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite Manor, she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested that they did not know what to think about her. They

re. She had a very pretty manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a child. The chil

nursery Mary might have learned some pretty ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautifu

t to the little thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGre

Craven sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a bl

nded much of it down, has she, ma'am?" "Perhaps she will improve as she grows older," the officer's wife said good-na

was standing a little apart from them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She was watching the passing buses and cabs and people, but she heard quite well and was made ve

her father and mother had been alive. Other children seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers, but she had never seemed to really be anyone's little girl. She had had servants, and food and clothes, but no one had taken any

day they set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked through the station to the railway carriage with her head up and trying to keep as far away

have said if she had been asked. She had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's daughter was going to be married, but she had a comfortable, well paid place as

t, cold way. "Captain Lennox was my wife's brother and I am their daughter's guard

small trunk and

d or to look at, and she had folded her thin little black-gloved hands in her lap. Her black dress

shire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a child who sat so still without do

ng about where you are going to," she sai

said

father and mothe

that her father and mother had never talked to her about anyt

eer, unresponsive little face. She did not say an

told something-to prepare you.

ked rather discomfited by her apparent indiffe

f the moor, and there's near a hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. And there's pictures and fine old furniture and things that's been there for ages, and t

d anything new rather attracted her. But she did not intend to look as if she we

Medlock. "What d

red. "I know nothing

dlock laugh a sho

you are like an old w

" said Mary, "whet

selthwaite Manor for I don't know, unless because it's the easiest way. He's not going to t

if she had just remem

wrong. He was a sour young man and got no good of

e hunchback's being married and she was a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talk

o' grass she wanted. Nobody thought she'd marry him, but she did, and people said sh

little invol

ch fairy story she had once read called "Riquet a la Houppe." It had been about a poor hun

. Most of the time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the West Wing and won't let an

crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the window-

to talk to you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself. You'll be told what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're

she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven she began to cease to be

d out at the gray rain-storm which looked as if it would go on forever and ever. She watched it s