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THE SECRET GARDEN

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

_Author of

“The Shuttle,” “The Making of a Marchioness,” “The Methods of Lady
Walderhurst,” “The Lass o’ Lowries,” “Through One Administration,”
“Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “A Lady of Quality,” etc._

Contents

I. THERE IS NO ONE LEFT
II. MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY
III. ACROSS THE MOOR
IV. MARTHA
V. THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR
VI. “THERE WAS SOMEONE CRYING—THERE WAS!”
VII. THE KEY TO THE GARDEN
VIII. THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY
IX. THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANYONE EVER LIVED IN
X. DICKON
XI. THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH
XII. “MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?”
XIII. “I AM COLIN”
XIV. A YOUNG RAJAH
XV. NEST BUILDING
XVI. “I WON’T!” SAID MARY
XVII. A TANTRUM
XVIII. “THA’ MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME”
XIX. “IT HAS COME!”
XX. “I SHALL LIVE FOREVER—AND EVER—AND EVER!”
XXI. BEN WEATHERSTAFF
XXII. WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN
XXIII. MAGIC
XXIV. “LET THEM LAUGH”
XXV. THE CURTAIN
XXVI. “IT’S MOTHER!”
XXVII. IN THE 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 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
learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she
awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw
that the servant who stood by her bedside 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 the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was
done in its 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 the
things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she
returned.

“Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!” she said, because to call a native a pig
is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she
heard her mother come out on the veranda with someone. She was with a
fair young man and they stood talking together 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
person and 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 lifted imploringly to the fair boy
officer’s face.

“Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?” Mary heard her say.

“Awfully,” the young man answered in a trembling voice. “Awfully, 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 such a 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.
“What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped.

“Someone has died,” answered the boy officer. “You did not say it had
broken out among your servants.”

“I did not know!” the Mem Sahib cried. “Come with me! Come with me!”
and she turned and ran into the house.