My name is Mary Lennox,' she said crossly. 'I was
asleep when everyone was ill, and now I'm hungry.'
'It's the child, the one nobody ever saw!' said the older man to the other. 'They've all forgotten her!'
'Why was I forgotten?' asked Mary angrily. 'Why has nobody come to take care of me?'
The younger man looked at her very sadly. 'Poor child!' he said. 'You see, there's nobody left alive in the house. So nobody can come.'
In this strange and sudden way Mary learnt that both her mother and her father had died. The few servants who had