1. 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 on her face. Her hair was yellow,and her face was yellow too 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. 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 little thing she was kept out of the way also.She never remembered seeing famaliarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and other native servants,and as they 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 girl as ever. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up hr place in three months,and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learnt her letters at all.

    One frightfully hot morning,when she was about nine years old,she awakened very cross,and she became even crosser when she saw that the servant who stood by her was not her Ayah.

    "Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me." The woman looked frightened,but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her,she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for her Ayah to come to her.

    There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in it's regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing,while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would 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 making a flower-bed,and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of Earth,all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself one thing or another.

    She was grinding her teeth and muttering to herself over and over again when she hesrd her mother come out on the veranda with someone. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking to eathother in low,strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come 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 persom who wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things,and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating,and Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning,but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifter imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.

    "Is it so very bad? Oh,is it?"  Mary had heard her say.

    "Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfiully Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago."

    The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

    "Oh,I know I ought!" She cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool i was!"

    At that very moment sucha loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants' quarters that she clutched the young man's arm,and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder.

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