with purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled
when she moved her head.  Mary did not like her at all,
but as she very seldom liked people there was nothing
remarkable in that; besides which it was very evident
Mrs. Medlock did not think much of her. 

"My word! she's a plain little piece of goods!" she said. 
"And we'd heard that her mother was a beauty.  She hasn't
handed much of it down, has she, ma'am?" "Perhaps she
will improve as she grows older," the officer's wife
said good-naturedly. "If she were not so sallow and had
a nicer expression, her features are rather good. 
Children alter so much."

"She'll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock. 
"And, there's nothing likely to improve children at
Misselthwaite--if you ask me!" They thought Mary was not
listening because she was standing a little apart from them
at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. 
She was watching the passing buses and cabs and people,
but she heard quite well and was made very curious about
her uncle and the place he lived in.  What sort of a place
was it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback?
She had never seen one.  Perhaps there were none in India. 

Since she had been living in other people's houses
and had had no Ayah, she had begun to feel lonely
and to think queer thoughts which were new to her. 
She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong
to anyone even when her father and mother had been alive. 
Other children seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers,
but she had never seemed to really be anyone's little girl. 
She had had servants, and food and clothes, but no one
had taken any notice of her.  She did not know that this
was because she was a disagreeable child; but then,
of course, she did not know she was disagreeable. 
She often thought that other people were, but she did not
know that she was so herself. 

She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person
she had ever seen, with her common, highly colored face
and her common fine bonnet.  When the next day they set
out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked through
the station to the railway carriage with her head up
and trying to keep as far away from her as she could,
because she did not want to seem to belong to her. 
It would have made her angry to think people imagined she
was her little girl. 

But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her
and her thoughts.  She was the kind of woman who would
"stand no nonsense from young ones." At least, that is
what she would have said if she had been asked.  She had
not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's
daughter was going to be married, but she had a comfortable,
well paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor
and the only way in which she could keep it was to do
at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. 
She never dared even to ask a question. 

"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera,"
Mr. Craven had said in his short, cold way.  "Captain Lennox
was my wife's brother and I am their daughter's guardian. 
The child is to be brought here.  You must go to London
and bring her yourself."

So she packed her small trunk and made the journey. 

Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked
plain and fretful.  She had nothing to read or to look at,
and she had folded her thin little black-gloved hands in
her lap.  Her black dress made her look yellower than ever,
and her limp light hair straggled from under her black
crepe hat. 

"A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life,"
Mrs. Medlock thought.  (Marred is a Yorkshire word and
means spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a child
who sat so still without doing anything; and at last she
got tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk,
hard voice. 

"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where
you are going to," she said.  "Do you know anything
about your uncle?"

"No," said Mary. 

"Never heard your father and mother talk about him?"

"No," said Mary frowning.  She frowned because she
remembered that her father and mother had never talked
to her about anything in particular.  Certainly they
had never told her things. 

"Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer,
unresponsive little face.  She did not say any more for
a few moments and then she began again. 

"I suppose you might as well be told something--to