"What desolation!" she heard one voice say.
"That pretty, pretty woman! I suppose the
child, too. 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.
Why does nobody come?"

"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed
the man, turning to his companions. "She has
actually been forgotten!"

"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping
her foot. "Why does nobody come?"

The young man whose name was Barney looked

[[8]]

p007 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p008w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p009

v?