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74
THE SECRET GARDEN

She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

“You didn’t hear anything of the sort,” said the housekeeper. “You come along back to your own nursery or I’ll box your ears.”

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room.

“Now,” she said, “you stay where you’re told to stay or you’ll find yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as he said he would. You’re one that needs some one to look sharp after you. I’ve got enough to do.”

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went and sat on the hearthrug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground her teeth.

“There was some one crying—there was—there was!” she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.