she heard one voice say. "That pretty, pretty woman!
I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child,
though no one ever saw her."

Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they
opened the door a few minutes later. She looked an ugly,
cross little thing and was frowning because she was
beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected.
The first man who came in was a large officer she had once
seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled,
but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost
jumped back.

"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child
alone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!"

"I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself
up stiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call her
father's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep when
everyone had the cholera and I have only just wakened up.
Why does nobody come?"

"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man,
turning to his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"

"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot.
"Why does nobody come?"

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly.
Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink