`I'm twenty-three years old,' said Miss Honey. `When I was born, my father was a doctor in this village and we lived in a beautiful old house. Then my mother died when I was two and my aunt came to live with us. My father was a busy doctor and he needed somebody to look after me. But my aunt was not a kind person. Then, when I was five, my father died suddenly.'
`How did he die?' asked Matilda.
`That's an interesting question,' said Miss Honey. `I was too young to ask question at the time, but later I learned that there was a lot of mystery about his death. He was a very calm and sensible man, and nobody really believed that he did it.'