Ten-year-old Mary is thin and sickly-looking with lank, light-colored hair. Since infancy, Mary has been treated like a doll by servants who did everything for her and gave her whatever she wanted to keep her quiet. As a result, Mary never learned how to manage her feelings except by making other people unhappy until they give her what she wants. Mary dislikes other people, thinking they are disagreeable, but she has no idea that she is also disagreeable. This shows that Mary doesn’t know how to think about herself apart from what she feels and wants in the moment. When everyone is sick and she has no one to care for her, Mary tries, symbolically, to manage her feelings by making little gardens out of dirt and fallen flowers, but she doesn’t understand how to make things grow, so her gardens come to nothing. Her efforts show that, on some level, Mary knows what she has to do to take care of herself, but she needs someone to show her how.

Considering the neglect in her upbringing, Mary has every reason to be an angry and unhappy child. By not conforming to the romantic ideal of the perfect little girl in other stories, Mary shows her uniqueness.