The Secret Garden (sample)

Mary Lennox knew she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father held a position under the English Government and was always busy and ill himself. Her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties. So when Mary was a baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a little girl she was forgotten as often as not. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah. By the time she was six years old Mary was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.