except when he's with me," and he jerked his
thumb toward the robin. "He's th' only friend
I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I
never had. My Ayah didn't like me and I never
played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think
with blunt frankness, and old Ben Weatherstaff
was a Yorkshire moor man.

"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said.
"We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're
neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as
sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers,
both of us, I'll warrant."

This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had
never heard the truth about herself in her life.
Native servants always salaamed and submitted
to you, whatever you did. She had never thought
much about her looks, but she wondered if she was
as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also
wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked
before the robin came. She actually began to
wonder also if she was "nasty tempered." She
felt uncomfortable.

Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out
near her and she turned round. She was standing
a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin

[[51]]

p050 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p051w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p052

v?