"Martha"
- Mary wakes up to find a housemaid making a fire in her fireplace.
- Mary has never met a servant like Martha—she's so friendly and so not scared by Mary's bad temper.
- Mary is shocked to learn that, at nine years old, Martha expects Mary to get dressed on her own.
- Martha helps get Mary dressed (even though she obviously thinks Mary is an idiot for being unable to put on her own shoes).
- Martha chats to Mary about her family: She's one of twelve brothers and sisters, and her family is so poor that they have trouble feeding everybody.
- One of her brothers, Dickon, is twelve (so, not that far off from Mary's age).
- When Martha suggests that Mary go off and play on her own in the moors, Mary is like, um, no. It's gloomy, damp, and there's nothing to do.
- But then when she hears that Dickon might be out there she decides to go out after all.
- Martha also suggests that Mary keep her eyes open for the locked, walled garden.
- Apparently, it used to belong to Mr. Craven's wife, but when she died, Mr. Craven had the garden locked up.
- As Mary walks through the grounds and gardens of Misselthwaite Manor, she finds a wall so covered in ivy that it doesn't seem to have a door at all.
- As she goes looking for a door through the ivy, Mary meets an old man gardening.
- Even though he is not the friendliest guy in the world, Mary takes to him—it's nice to have another human being around. Mary may be a grouch, but she is still a human being who likes company.
- As they are talking, the gardener smiles and calls a robin over to him.
- Mary tells the robin that she is lonely, and the gardener seems to feel sudden sympathy for her. He introduces himself as Ben.
- Ben gives Mary some frank, straight talk: "Tha' an' me are a good bit alike […] We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant" (4.132).
- (In other words, we're both bad-looking and bad-tempered, so let's be sort-of-friends.)
- Mary wonders, for the first time ever, if she actually is nasty-tempered. (Short answer: yes.)
- Ben warns her not to go looking for the entrance to the locked garden.