Mary Lennox had a thin little face and a thin little body, thin light hair and a very sour expression. She never smiled - not once during the long trip to England.

She had come from India where a terrible disease had killed thousands of people. Among the dead were Mary's mother and father. She didn't miss them very much since she hardly knew them. Her parents were always away somewhere for important business. Mary Lennox hardly even knew what their faces looked like.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).