I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her." Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a few minutes later.

She looked an ugly, cross little thing and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected.

The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father.

He looked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.
"Barney!" he cried out.

"There is a child here! A child alone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!" "I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly.
She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep when every one had the cholera and I have only just wakened up.