"The Secret Garden"

[fiefoe]

Frances Hodgson Burnett got rid of Mary's parents with remarkable alacrity in the first few pages.

Thanks to Josephine Bailey, I'll probably have an easier time with "The Unknown Ajax" audiobook.

• "I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than me--for all you're so yeller."
• "I'm lonely," she said. <> She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at her and she looked at the robin.
• "Everybody knows him. Dickon's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very blackberries an' heather-bells knows him. I warrant th' foxes shows him where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from him."
• "For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that they've not got skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and camels!
• "Well!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word. P'raps tha' art a young 'un, after all, an' p'raps tha's got child's blood in thy veins instead of sour buttermilk. Tha's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben Weatherstaff.
• It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine.
• "Eh!" said Martha. "It's like she says: `A woman as brings up twelve children learns something besides her A B C. Children's as good as 'rithmetic to set you findin' out things.'"
• They drew the chair under the plum-tree, which was snow-white with blossoms and musical with bees. It was like a king's canopy, a fairy king's... Between the blossoming branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked down like wonderful eyes.
• (One of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like a sailor.)
• In fact as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed invalid he was a disgraceful sight.