kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly,
fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way
also. She never remembered seeing familiarly
anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the
other native servants, and as they always obeyed
her and gave her her own way in everything, because
the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was
disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six
years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little
pig as ever lived. The young English governess
who came to teach her to read and write disliked
her so much that she gave up her place in three
months, and when other governesses came to try
to fill it they always went away in a shorter time
than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen
to really want to know how to read books she
would never have learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was
about nine years old, she awakened feeling very
cross, and she became crosser still when she saw
that the servant who stood by her bedside was not
her Ayah.

"Why did you come?" she said to the strange
woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah
to me."

The woman looked frightened, but she only
stammered that the Ayah could not come and
when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat

[[2]]

p001 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p002w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p003

v?