CHAPTER I 4
OF THE MISSEL THRUSH 128 XII " MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" 140 XIII " I AM COLIN " 153 XIV A YOUNG RAJAH 172 XV NEST BUILDING 189 XVI " I WON ' T!" SAID MARY 207 XVII A TANTRUM 218 XVIII " THA ' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME " 229 XIX " IT HAS COME!" 239 XX " I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!" 255 XXI BEN WEATHERSTAFF 268 XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN 284 XXIII MAGIC 292 XXIV " LET THEM LAUGH " 310 XXV THE CURTAIN 328 XXVI " IT ' S MOTHER!" 339 XXVII IN THE GARDEN 353
THE SECRET GARDEN
CHAPTER I
THERE IS NO ONE LEFT
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little 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 had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing 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 as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place