Таинственный сад / The secret garden

But she always had a very small appetite.

“I don’t want it,” Mary said.

“You don’t want your porridge!” Martha exclaimed incredulously.

“No.”

“You don’t know how good it is.”

“I don’t want it,” repeated Mary.

“Eh!” said Martha. “If our children were at this table!”

“Why?” said Mary coldly.

“Why!” echoed Martha. “Because they are hungry as young hawks and foxes.”

“I don’t know what it is to be hungry,” said Mary.

Martha looked indignant.

“Well, try it.”

“Why don’t you take that to your brothers?” suggested Mary.

“It’s not mine,” answered Martha stoutly.

Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

“Put on warm clothes and play outside,” said Martha. “It’ll do you good.”

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry.

“Who will go with me?” she inquired.

Martha stared.

“You’ll go alone,” she answered.

“You’ll learn to play like other children do when they haven’t got sisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on the moor by himself and plays for hours. That’s how he made friends with the pony. He’s got sheep on the moor that knows him, and birds.”

Mary decided to go out.

“If you go round that way you’ll come to the gardens,” Martha said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. “There are a lot of flowers in summer-time in that place. But one of the gardens is locked up.

No one goes there.”

“Why?” asked Mary.

“Mr. Craven shut it when his wife died so suddenly. He didn’t let anyone go inside. It was her garden. He locked the door and dug a hole and buried the key. Oh! There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bell ringing-I must run.”

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk[13 - turned down the walk – побрела по тропинке] which led to the door in the shrubbery. She was thinking about the secret garden. She wondered what it looked like and whether there were any flowers still alive in it.

When she passed through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks with borders. There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens, and a large pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing.

She went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the ivy.