rs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward.
"And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty
manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a
child. The children call her 'Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and though
it's naughty of them, one can't help understanding it."

"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty
manners oftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty
ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to
remember that many people never even knew that she had a child at all."

"I believe she scarcely ever looked at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford.
"When her Ayah was dead there was no one to give a thought to the little
thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in
that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his
skin when he opened the door and found her standing by herself in the
middle of the room."

Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer's
wife, who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school.
She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was
rather glad to hand the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven
sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at
Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout
woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple
dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black bonnet 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 s