y feel that she did not want to look at them. As she stood
on the stone floor she looked a very small, odd little black figure, and
she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked.

A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for
them.

"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice. "He doesn't
want to see her. He's going to London in the morning."

"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered. "So long as I know
what's expected of me, I can manage."

"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said, "is that you
make sure that he's not disturbed and that he doesn't see what he
doesn't want to see."

And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long
corridor and up a short flight of steps and through another corridor and
another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a room
with a fire in it and a supper on a table.

Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:

"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll live--and
you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!"

It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she
had perhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life.

CHAPTER IV

MARTHA

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid
had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on the
hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for
a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never seen
a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls were
covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were
fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there
was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses
and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them.
Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land
which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless,
dull, purplish sea.

"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window.

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and
pointed also.

"That there?" she said.

"Yes."

"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?"

"No," answered Mary. "I hate it."

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her
hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will li