"Mistress Mary Quite Contrary"
- Mary is a cold-hearted little brat: She doesn't really miss her dead mother, because she barely knew her.
- She hates the temporary family she's staying with because there are lots of other kids and they won't let her have her own way all the time.
- In fact, one of them comes up with a nickname for her from a famous English nursery rhyme: "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" (2.6).
- Mary sails over from India to London to live with her strange uncle Archibald Craven.
- Archibald Craven's housekeeper Mrs. Medlock doesn't exactly fall for Mary at first sight, either: she calls her "a plain piece of goods" (2.19).
- Mrs. Medlock explains that Archibald Craven lives in Misselthwaite Manor, a huge old place in the bleak Yorkshire countryside with over a hundred rooms, most of them locked.
- There isn't much else around.
- Archibald Craven also has a deformed back, which made his life pretty miserable until he met the right woman.
- He got married and lived happily until his wife died, leaving him an isolated, lonely man.
- He refuses to see people or to leave his house.
- All of this news—weird hermit uncle; giant, mostly empty house; gloomy, marshy countryside—does not leave Mary with a lot of confidence in her new home.