The Drifting Life

When she woke the next day, the house was silent.

Perhaps the disease has gone, she thought, and everybody is well again. I wonder who will take care of me instead of Kama?

Why does not someone bring me some food? It is strange the house is so quiet.

But just then she heard ,men's voices in the hall.

How sad. said one. That beautiful woman.

There was a child too, wasn't there? said the other. Although none of us saw her.

Mary was standing in the middle of her room, when they opened the door, a few minutes later.

The two man jumped back in surprise.

My name is Mary, she said crossly. I was asleep, when everyone was ill, and now I am hungry.

It is the child, the one nobody ever saw. said the older man to the other.

They have 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 is nobody alive left 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 no died had run away in the night. No one had remembered little Mary.

She was all alone.

Because she had never known her parents well, she did not miss them at all.

She only thought of herself, as she had always done.

Where will I live? she wondered. I hope I will stay with people who will let me do what I want.

At first, she was taken to an English family who had known per parents.

She hated their untidy house and noisy children, and preferred playing by herself in the garden.

One day, she was playing her favorite game, pretending to make a garden, when one of the children, Basil, offered to help.

Go away, cried Mary. I do not want your help.

For a moment, Basil looked angry, and then he began to laugh.

He danced round and round Mary, and sang a funny little song about Mary and her stupid flowers.

This made Mary very cross indeed.

No one had ever laughed at her so unkindly.

You are going home soon, said Basil, and we are all very pleased you are leaving.

I am pleased too, replied Mary, but where is home?

You are stupid, if you do not know that. laughed Basil. England , of course. You are going to live with your uncle.

I have never heard of him, said Mary coldly.

But I know about him becasue I heard father and mother talking.

He lives in a big lonely old house, and has no friends, becasue he is so bad-tempered. He is got a crooked back, and he is horrid.

I do not believe you. 

But the next day, Basil's parnets explained that she was going to live with her uncle in Yorkshire, in the north of England. 

Mary looked bored and cross and said nothing.