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 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
walk