"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man,
turning to his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"
"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot.
"Why does nobody come?"
The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly.
Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink
tears away.
"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."
It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found
out that she had neither father nor mother left;
that they had died and been carried away in the night,
and that the few native servants who had not died also had
left the house as quickly as they could get out of it,
none of them even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib.
That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there
was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little
rustling snake.
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