doesn t want to see her. He s going to London in the morning.
Very well, Mr. Pitcher, Mrs. Medlock answered. So long as I know
what s expected of me, I can manage.
What s expected of you, Mrs. Medlock, Mr. Pitcher said, is that you
make sure that he s not disturbed and that he doesn t see what he
doesn t want to see.
And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long
corridor and up a short flight of steps and through another corridor
and another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a
room with a fire in it and a supper on a table.
Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:
Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you ll live and
you must keep to them. Don t you forget that!
It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she
had perhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life.
CHAPTER IV.
MARTHA
When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young
housemaid had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on
the hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her
for a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never
seen a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls
were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There
were fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance
there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and
horses and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with
them. Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of
land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an
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