he 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
any one 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 any one'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 very 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