How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When [Mary] awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectly still. She had never known it to be so silent before. She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who would take care of her now her Ayah was dead. There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories. […] When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely some one would remember and come to look for her. (1.20)
Okay, this passage is seriously creepy: Mary is totally alone and unsure if anyone's going to remember to come look for her. Yet, Mary doesn't seem that worried. In fact, Mary's Ayah—which is an Anglo-Indian word for a nanny or nurse—has just died of cholera (a horrible way to go, by the way). But Mary barely notices.
Even after Mary has learned more about feelings later on in the book, she doesn't seem to look back on her abandonment or her parents' death with any particular emotion. Why do you think Mary has so little feeling about this period in her life?
Quote #2
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. (1.29-31)
This young army officer Barney seems to feel sorrier for Mary than she does for herself. Even the narrator, who's none too fond of Mary at this point, invokes sympathy for the girl at this moment.
Quote #3
The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. (10.1)
Considering that Mary has spent so much time alone in her life, it's interesting that she likes the idea of secrecy so much—of a garden to call her very own. Perhaps so many years of neglect have made being alone feel familiar to her, especially since she was more or less rejected by her own mother. When you're alone, after all, no one rejects you.