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!