THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine.

The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.

Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses in India.

All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rose-bushes if they were alive.

There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees.