The Secret Garden / Таинственный сад

She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed [14 - self-absorbed – погруженный в себя] child she gave her entire thought to herself, as she had always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as she had always been taken care of, she supposed she always would be. What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to nice people, who would be polite to her and give her her own way as her Ayah and the other native servants had done.

She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman's house where she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English clergyman [15 - clergyman – священник] was poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play with her.

By the second day they had given her a nickname which made her furious.

It was Basil who thought of it first and Mary hated him. One day he came up to her while she was playing and began to tease. He made faces, sang and laughed. He called her “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary”.

“You are going to be sent home,” Basil said to her, “at the end of the week. And we're glad of it.”

“I am glad of it, too,” answered Mary. “Where is home?”

“She doesn't know where home is!” said Basil, with sevenyear-old scorn [16 - scorn – насмешка].

“It's England, of course. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama. You have none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr. Archibald Craven.”

“I don't know anything about him,” snapped Mary.

“I know you don't,” Basil answered. “You don't know anything. Girls never do. I heard father and mother talking about him.

He lives in a great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes near him. He's so cross he won't let them, and they wouldn't come if he would let them. He's a hunchback[17 - hunchback – горбун], and he's horrid[18 - horrid – противный, мерзкий].”

“I don't believe you,” said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her fingers in her ears, because she would not listen any more.

Mrs.