The Secret Garden

live with her uncle everybody said she was the mostd

a sour expression. Her hair was yellow,and her face was yellow because

always been busy and ill himself,and her mother had been a great be

becamea sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out ofthe way also. She never remembered seeing familiarlyanything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the othernative servants, and as they always obeyed her and gaveher her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahibwould be angry if she was disturbed by her crying,by the

want to know howto read books she woul

she awakened feeling very cross, and she becamecrosser still when

me?" she said to

hat the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herselfinto a passion and beat and kicked her, she l

ng mysterious in th

thenative servants seemed missing, while those whom Mar

ll her anything and h

,and at last she wandered out into the garden and be

ssoms into little heaps of earth,all the time growing more and more angry and muttering

he said, because to calla native

with some one. She was with a fair young man and they stoodtalking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the

t him, but she stare

erthan anything else--was such a tall, slim, pretty personand wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curl

theywere "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than

d and lifted imploringly to

bad? Oh, is it?"

ung man answered in

to have gone to the hillstwo weeks

fool I was!"At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing brokeout from the servants'

nd wilder. "What is it? Wha

u didnot say it had broken out among your servants."

nd she turned and

n its most fatal form and people were dyinglike flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night,and it was because she had just

ery side, and dying peo

of the second day Maryhid herself in t

h she knew nothing. Mary alternately criedand slept through the hours. She onl

finished meal was on the table and chairsand plates looked as if they h

its, and being thirstyshe drank a gl

d she did not know

kto her nursery and shut herself in again, frightened by c

scarcely keep hereyes open and she lay down o

tso heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails and t

ed she lay and st

neither voicesnor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well ofthe cholera and all

owsome new stories. Mary had been rather tired of the

e noise and hurrying about and wailingover the cholera had frightened her,

egirl no one was fond of. When people had the cholera

again, surely some one wouldrem

re silent. She heard something rustlingon the matting and when she looked dow

hing who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurryto get

t me and the snake."Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound,and then on th

dto open doors and look into rooms. "What desolation!

in the middle of the nursery when theyopened the door a few minutes later. She looked an ugly,cross

seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled,but

am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herselfup stiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call herf

aimed the man,turning to his companions. "She has actually been

young man whose name was Ba

saw him wink his eyes

d neither father nor mother left;that they had died and been carried away in the night,and that the few native servants who had n

as true that therewas no one in the bungalo