1361,

s 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
everyone 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 at her very sadly.
Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink
tears away.
"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."
It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found
out that she had neither father nor mother left;
that they had died and been carried away in the night,
and that the few native servants who had not died also had
left the house as quickly as they could get out of it,
none of them even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib.
That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there
was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little
rustling snake.
Chapter II
MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY
Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance
and she had thought her very pretty, but as she knew
very little of her she could scarcely have been expected
to love her or to miss her very much when she was gone.
She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a
self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself,
as she had always done. If she had been older she would
no doubt have been very anxious at being left alone in
the world, but she was very young, and as she had always
bee