Le Jardin secret

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most unpleasant-looking child they had ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow too, because she had been ill so often.

She had been born in India, where her father worked for the English government. He was always busy and often ill himself. Her mother was a great beauty who cared only about parties and pretty dresses. She had not wanted a little girl at all. So when Mary was born, she was given to other people to look after, and she was kept out of the way.

Mary never remembered seeing anything familiar except the faces of the people who looked after her. They always gave her what she wanted, because her mother would be angry if she cried. So by the time she was six years old, she was as spoiled and selfish a little girl as ever lived. Nobody had ever taught her to say please or thank you. Nobody had ever taught her to be kind. And she was very lonely, although she did not know it.