that big footstool and talk. I want to hear about
you."

Mary put down her candle on the table near
the bed and sat down on the cushioned stool. She
did not want to go away at all. She wanted to
stay in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk
to the mysterious boy.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.

He wanted to know how long she had been at
Misselthwaite; he wanted to know which corridor
her room was on; he wanted to know what she
had been doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked
it; where she had lived before she came to
Yorkshire. She answered all these questions and
many more and he lay back on his pillow and listened.
He made her tell him a great deal about
India and about her voyage across the ocean. She
found out that because he had been an invalid he
had not learned things as other children had.
One of his nurses had taught him to read when
he was quite little and he was always reading and
looking at pictures in splendid books.

Though his father rarely saw him when he was
awake, he was given all sorts of wonderful things
to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have
been amused, however. He could have anything
he asked for and was never made to do anything
he did not like to do.

[[161]]

p160 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p161w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p162

v?