The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face. “What are you doing here?” she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. “What did I tell you?” “I turned round the wrong corner,” explained Mary. “I didn’t know which way to go and I heard some one crying.” She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next. “You didn’t hear anything of the sort,” said the housekeeper. “You come along back to your own nursery or I’ll box your ears.” And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room. “Now,” she said, “you stay where you’re told to stay or you’ll find yourself locked up.