The Secret Garden

en Mary looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden

ottage when it rains like

just th' same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had been killed nea

e lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble

ub I could play with it," sa

ooked pe

knit?" s

answer

tha'

N

tha'

es

learn a bit o' spellin'? Tha'st old enou

said Mary. "Those I h

. Medlock'd let thee go into th' libr

sekeeper's sitting-room downstairs. In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was

r what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children. In India she had always been attended by her Ayah, who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had often b

r her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp as the

r an hour after that, but it made h

ad very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them. Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors she could count? It

satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She had never thought there could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house. Some were pictures of children-little girls in thick satin frocks which reached to the

said Mary aloud to her.

l self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever wal

ightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and in

said Mary. "She stares at me so

there must be a hundred, though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries wi

some had their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all abou

the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In the corner o

eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near h

ightened I would take them

st her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down until she found the right one; but at

still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on

as broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite like the one she had heard last

d Mary, her heart beating rath

estry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor beh

and she took Mary by the arm and pu

now which way to go and I heard some one crying." She quite ha

id the housekeeper. "You come along back t

f pulled her up one passage and down another unt

ocked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as he said he would.

r her, and Mary went and sat on the hearth-rug, pa

ing-there was-there was

t as if she had been on a long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time, and she