CHAPTER ONE Sarah. Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father, and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father, who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing people, with the queer, old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.  It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sarah crew was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things, and she could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up people in the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time. At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from Bombay with her father, Captain Crew. She was thinking of the big ship, of the laskars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some of the young officer's wives who used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said. Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was, that at one time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling, that she moved closer to her father. Papa! She said in a low, mysterious little voice, which was almost a whisper. Papa! What is it, darling? Captain Crew answered, holding her closer and looking down into her face. What is Sarah thinking of? Is this the place? Sarah whispered, cuddling still closer to him. Is it, Papa? Yes, little Sarah, it is. We have reached it at last. And though she was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he said it. It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for the place, as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich, petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world. They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she grew up she would be rich too. She did not know all that being rich meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used to seeing many servants who made salams to her and called her Missy Saeed, and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and pets in an ire who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew about it. During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that thing was the place she was to be taken to some day. The climate of India was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they were sent away from it, generally to England and to school. She had seen other children go away, and had heard their fathers and mothers talk about the letters they received from them. She had known that she would be obliged to go also, and though sometimes her father's stories of the voyage and the new country had attracted her, she had been troubled by the thought that he could not stay with her. "'Couldn't you go to that place with me, Papa?' she had asked when she was five years old. "'Couldn't you go to school too? I would help you with your lessons.'" "'But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sarah,' he had always said.  She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her father, to ride with him and sit at the head of his table when he had dinner parties, to talk to him and read his books. That would be what she would like most in the world. And if one must go away to the place in England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books, she could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and was in fact always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had liked them as much as she did. "'Well, Papa,' she said softly, "'if we are here, I suppose we must be resigned.' He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was really not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret. His quaint little Sarah had been a great companion to him, and he felt he would be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India, he went into his bungalow, knowing he need not expect to see the small figure in its white frock come forward to meet him. So he held her very closely in his arms, as the cab rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the house which was their destination. It was a big, dull brick house, exactly like all the others in its row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on which was engraved in black letters, Miss Minchin, select seminary for young ladies. "'Here we are, Sarah,' said Captain Crew, making his voice sound as cheerful as possible. Then he lifted her out of the cab, and they mounted the steps and rang the bell. Sarah often thought afterward that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin. It was respectable and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly, and the very arm-chairs seemed to have hard bones in them. In the hall everything was hard and polished, even the red cheeks of the moon-face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. The drawing-room into which they were ushered was covered by a carpet with a square pattern upon it, the chairs were square, and the heavy marble timepiece stood upon the heavy marble mantle. As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sarah cast one of her quick looks about her. "'I don't like it, Papa,' she said, but then I dare say soldiers, even brave ones, don't really like going into battle.' Captain Crew laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, and he never tired of hearing Sarah's queer speeches. "'Oh, little Sarah,' he said, "'what shall I do when I have no one to say solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are.' "'But why do solemn things make you laugh so?' inquired Sarah.  And then suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed her very hard, stopping laughing all at once, and looking almost as if tears had come into his eyes. It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room. She was very like her house, Sarah felt, tall and dull and respectable and ugly.  It spread itself into a very large smile when she saw Sarah and Captain Crew. She had heard a great many desirable things of the young soldier from the lady who had recommended her school to him. Among other things, she had heard that he was a rich father who was willing to spend a great deal of money on his little daughter. It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful and promising child, Captain Crew," she said, taking Sarah's hand and stroking it. Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A clever child is a great treasure in an establishment like mine. Sarah stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's face. She was thinking something odd as usual. "'Why does she say I'm a beautiful child?' she was thinking. I'm not beautiful at all. Colonel Granger's little girl, Isabella, is beautiful. She has dimples and rose-coloured cheeks and long hair the colour of gold. I have short black hair and green eyes, besides which I am a thin child and not fair in the least. I am one of the ugliest children I ever saw. She is beginning by telling a story.'  She was not in the least like Isabelle Grange, who had been the beauty of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She was a slim, supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive little face. Her hair was heavy and quite black, and only curled at the tips. Her eyes were greenish-gray, it is true, but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black lashes. And though she herself did not like the colour of them, many other people did.  I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful, she thought, and I should know I was telling a story. I believe I am as ugly as she is, in my way. What did she say that for? After she had known Miss Minchin longer, she learned why she had said it. She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa and mama who brought a child to her school. Sarah stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin talked. She had been brought to the seminary because Lady Meredith's two little girls had been educated there, and Captain Crue had a great respect for Lady Meredith's experience. Sarah was to be what was known as a parlor-border, and she was to enjoy even greater privileges than parlor-borders usually did. She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting-room of her own. She was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place of the aya who had been her nurse in India.  The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast, too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin. She gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble.  Drag her away from her books when she reads too much.  She ought to play more with dolls. Papa, said Sarah, you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend. Captain Crue looked at Miss Minchin, and Miss Minchin looked at Captain Crue. Who is Emily? She inquired. Tell her, Sarah, Captain Crue said, smiling. Papa's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft, as she answered. She is a doll I haven't got yet, she said. She is a doll Papa is going to buy for me. We are going out together to find her. I have called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when Papa is gone. I want her to talk to about him. Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed. What an original child, she said.  Yes, said Captain Crue, drawing Sarah close.  Take great care of her, for me, Miss Minchin. Sarah stayed with her father at his hotel for several days. In fact, she remained with him until he sailed away again to India. They went out and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things. They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sarah needed. But Captain Crue was a rash, innocent young man, and wanted his little girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself. So between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of seven. There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs and lace dresses and embroidered ones and hats with great soft, ostrich feathers and ermine coats and muffs and boxes of tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings and such abundant supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other, the odd little girl with big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign princess, perhaps the little daughter of an Indian raja. And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her. I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll, really, Sarah said. I want her to look as if she listens when I talk to her. It's a trouble with dolls, Papa," and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said it. The trouble with dolls is that they never seemed to hear. So they looked at big ones and little ones, at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue, at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed. You see, Sarah said, when they were examining one who had no clothes, if when I find her she has no frocks we can take her to a dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if they are tried on. After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at the shop windows and let the cab follow them. They had passed two or three places without even going in, when, as they were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one, Sarah suddenly started and clutched her father's arm. Oh, Papa," she cried, "'there is Emily.'" A flush had risen to her face, and there was an expression in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate with and fond of. "'She's actually waiting there for us,' she said, "'let us go into her.'" "'Dear me,' said Captain Crew, "'I feel as if we ought to have someone to introduce us.' "'You must introduce me, and I will introduce you,' said Sarah. But I knew her the minute I saw her, so perhaps she knew me, too.' Perhaps she had known her.  She was a large doll, but not too large to carry about easily.  "'Of course,' said Sarah, looking into her face as she held her on her knee. "'Of course, Papa,' this is Emily." So Emily was bought, and actually taken to a children's outfitter's shop, and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sarah's own. She had lace frocks, too, and velvet and muslin ones, and hats and coats, and beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and gloves and handkerchiefs and furs. "'I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a good mother,' said Sarah. "'I'm her mother, though I'm going to make a companion of her.'" Captain Crue would really have enjoyed the shopping tremendously, but that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart. This all meant that he was going to be separated from his beloved, little comrade. He got out of his bed in the middle of that night, and went and stood looking down at Sarah, who lay asleep with Emily in her arms. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow, and Emily's golden brown hair mingled with it. Both of them had lace-ruffled nightgowns, and both had long eyelashes which lay and curled up on their cheeks. Emily looked so like a real child that Captain Crue felt glad she was there. He drew a big sigh and pooled his mustache with a boyish expression.  The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there. He was to sail away the next morning. He explained to Miss Minchin that his solicitors, Messios Barrow and Skipworth, had charged of his affairs in England, and would give her any advice she wanted, and that they would pay the bill she sent him for Sarah's expenses. She would write to Sarah twice a week, and she was to be given every pleasure she asked for. "'She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it isn't safe to give her,' he said. Then he went with Sarah into a little sitting-room, and they bade each other good-bye. Sarah sat on his knee and held the lapels of his coat in her small hands, and looked long and hard at his face. "'Are you learning me by heart, little Sarah?' he said, stroking her hair. "'No,' she answered, "'I know you by heart. "'You are inside my heart,' and they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would never let each other go. When the cab drove away from the door, Sarah was sitting on the floor of her sitting-room, with her hands under her chin, and her eyes following it, until it had turned the corner of the square. Emily was sitting by her, and she looked after it too. When Miss Minchin sent her sister, Miss Amelia, to see what the child was doing, she found she could not open the door. "'I have locked it,' said a queer, polite little voice from inside. "'I want to be quite by myself, if you please.' Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of her sister. She was really the better-natured person of the two, but she never disobeyed Miss Minchin. She went downstairs again, looking almost alarmed. "'I never saw such a funny old-fashioned child, sister,' she said. "'She has locked herself in, and she is not making the least particle of noise. It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some of them do,' Miss Minchin answered. I expected that a child as much spoiled as she is would set the whole house in an uproar. If ever a child was given her own way in everything, she is. "'I've been opening her trunks and putting her things away,' said Miss Amelia. "'I never saw anything like them. Sable and ermine on her coats, and real valencienne lace on her under-clothing. You have seen some of her clothes. What do you think of them?' "'I think they are perfectly ridiculous,' replied Miss Minchin sharply. "'But they will look very well at the head of the line when we take the school children to church on Sunday. She has been provided for as if she were a little princess.' And upstairs, in the lot-room, Sarah and Emily sat on the floor, and stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared, while Captain Crue looked backward, waving and kissing his hand as if he could not bear to stop. CHAPTER 2 A FRENCH LESSON When Sarah entered the school-room the next morning, everybody looked at her with wide, interested eyes. By that time, every pupil, from Levinia Herbert, who was nearly thirteen, and felt quite grown up, to Lottie Lay, who was only just four and the baby of the school, had heard a great deal about her. They knew very certainly that she was Miss Minchin's show-pupil, and was considered a credit to the establishment. One or two of them had even caught a glimpse of her French-made mariette, who had arrived the evening before. Levinia had managed to pass Sarah's room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening a box which had arrived late from some shop. It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them—frills and frills! She whispered to her friend Jesse as she bent over her geography. I saw her shaking them out.  My mama says that children should be dressed simply. She's got one of those petticoats on now. I saw it when she sat down. She has silk stockings on, whispered Jesse, bending over her geography also. And what little feet! I never saw such little feet. Oh! sniffed Levinia spitefully. That is the way her slippers are made. My mama says that even big feet can be made to look small if you have a clever shoemaker. I don't think she is pretty at all.  She isn't pretty as other pretty people are, said Jesse, stealing a glance across the room. But she makes you want to look at her again. She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green. Sarah was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested, and looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa at all like her own. She had had a long talk with Emily about her papa that morning. He is on the sea now, Emily, she had said. We must be very great friends to each other, and tell each other things. Emily, look at me. You have the nicest eyes I ever saw, but I wish you could speak. She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even pretending that Emily was alive, and really heard and understood. After Mariette had dressed her in her dark blue schoolroom frock, and tied her hair with a dark blue ribbon, she went to Emily, who sat in a chair of her own, and gave her a book. You can read that while I am downstairs, she said, and seeing Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious little face. What I believe about dolls, she said, is that they can do things they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out of the room. That is her secret. You see, if people knew that dolls could do things, they would make them work. So perhaps they have promised each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will just sit there and stare. But if you go out, she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out the window. Then, if she had either of us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend she had been there all the time. Chromele d'Roll, Mariette said to herself, and when she went downstairs she told the head-housemaid about it.  She had taken care of children before who were not so polite. Sarah was a very fine little person, and had a gentle, appreciative way of saying, if you please, Mariette, thank you, Mariette, which was very charming. Mariette told the head-housemaid that she thanked her as if she were thanking a lady. Elle a l'air d'une princesse cette petite, she said. Indeed, she was very much pleased with her new little mistress, and liked her place greatly. After Sarah had sat in her seat in the school room for a few minutes, being looked at by the pupils, Miss Mention rapped in a dignified manner upon her desk. Young ladies, she said, I wish to introduce you to your new companion. All the little girls rose in their places, and Sarah rose also. I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crue. She has just come to us from a great distance, in fact, from India. As soon as lessons are over you must make each other's acquaintance. The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sarah made a little curtsy, and then they sat down and looked at each other again. Sarah, said Miss Mention in her schoolroom manner, come here to me. She had taken a book from the desk, and was turning over its leaves. Sarah went to her politely. As your papa has engaged a French maid for you, she began, I conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French language. Sarah felt a little awkward. I think he engaged her, she said, because he thought I would like her, Miss Mention. I am afraid, said Miss Mention with a slightly sour smile, that you have been a very spoiled little girl, and always imagine that things are done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you to learn French. If Sarah had been older, or less punctilious about being quite polite to people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But as it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. Miss Mention was a very severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely sure that Sarah knew nothing whatever of French, that she felt as if it would be almost rude to correct her. The truth was, that Sarah could not remember the time when she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often spoken it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French woman, and Captain Crue had loved her language, so it happened that Sarah had always heard and been familiar with it. I—I have never really learned French, but—but she began, trying shyly to make herself clear. One of Miss Mention's chief secret annoyances was that she did not speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating fact. She therefore had no intention of discussing the matter, and laying herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil. That is enough, she said, with polite tartness. If you have not learned, you must begin at once. The French master, Monsieur Dufache, will be here in a few minutes. Take this book, and look at it until he arrives. Sarah's cheeks felt warm. She went back to her seat, and opened the book. She looked at the first page with a grave face. She knew it would be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. But it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page which told her that Le Père meant the father, and La Mer meant the mother. Miss Mention glanced toward her scrutinizingly. You look rather cross, Sarah, she said. I am sorry you do not like the idea of learning French. I am very fond of it," answered Sarah, thinking she would try again. But you must not say but when you are told to do things, said Miss Mention. Look at your book again. And Sarah did so, and did not smile, even when she found that Le Fice meant the son, and Le Frère meant the brother. When Monsieur Dufache comes, she thought, I can make him understand. Monsieur Dufache arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice, intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his eyes fell upon Sarah, trying politely to seem absorbed in her little book of phrases. Is this a new pupil for me, madame? He said to Miss Mention. I hope that is my good fortune. Her papa, Captain Crue, is very anxious that she should begin the language, but I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. She does not seem to wish to learn, said Miss Mention. I am sorry of that, mademoiselle, he said kindly to Sarah. Perhaps when we begin to study together, I may show you that it is a charming tongue. Little Sarah rose in her seat. She was beginning to feel rather desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace. She looked up into Monsieur Dufache's face with her big, green, gray eyes, and they were quite innocently appealing. She knew that he would understand as soon as she spoke. She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French exactly, not out of books, but her papa and other people had always spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read and written English. Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he did. Her diem-emma, who had died when she was born, had been French. She would be glad to learn anything, Monsieur would teach her. But what she had tried to explain to Madame was that she already knew the words in this book. And she held out the little book of phrases. When she began to speak, Miss Mention started quite violently, and sat staring at her over her eyeglasses almost indignantly until she finished. Monsieur Dufache began to smile. And his smile was one of great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in his native land, which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her, with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Mention. Ah, Madame, he said, there is not much I can teach her. She has not learned French. She is French. Her accent is exquisite. You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Mention, much mortified, turning to Sarah. I—I tried," said Sarah. I suppose I did not begin right. Miss Mention knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils had been listening, and that Lavinia and Jesse were giggling behind their French grammars, she felt infuriated. Silence, young ladies, she said severely, wrapping upon the desk, silenced at once. And she began, from that minute, to feel rather grudge against her show-pupil. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Read Philippe Revox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007. Chapter 3. Ermengard. On that first morning, when Sarah sat at Miss Mention's side, aware that the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her very hard, with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat child, who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had a good, naturally pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail round her neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the desk, as she stared wanderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur Dufarche began to speak to Sarah, she looked a little frightened, and when Sarah stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent, appealing eyes, answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to remember that la mère meant the mother, and le père, the father, when one spoke sensible English, it was almost too much for her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age, who seemed not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were mere trifles. She stared so hard, and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast, that she attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross at the moment, immediately pounced upon her. Miss St. John! she exclaimed severely, what do you mean by such conduct?  Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jesse tittered, she became redder than ever. So red indeed, that she almost looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes. And Sarah saw her, and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her and to want to be her friend. It was a way of hers to always want to spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy. If Sarah had been a boy, and lived a few centuries ago, her father used to say, she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing, and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble. So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow little Miss St. John, and kept glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being spoiled by being treated as a show-pupil.  Her pronunciation made even Monsieur du Fouch smile in spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jesse, and the more fortunate girls, either giggled or looked at her in wondering this dame. But Sarah did not laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John, called Le Bon Pain, Libon Pang.  It isn't funny, really, she said between her teeth as she bent over her book. They ought not to laugh. When lessons were over, and the pupils gathered together in groups to talk, Sarah looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather disconsolently in a window-seed, she walked over to her and spoke. She only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by way of beginning and acquaintance, but there was something friendly about Sarah, and people always felt it. What is your name? She said. To explain Miss St. John's amazement, one must recall that a new pupil is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing, and of this new pupil the entire school had talked the night before, until it fell asleep quite exhausted by excitement in contradictory stories. A new pupil with a carriage and a pony and a maid and a voyage from India to discuss was not an ordinary acquaintance. My name's Ermengard St. John, she answered. Mine is Sarah Crue, said Sarah. Yours is very pretty. It sounds like a story-book. Do you like it? fluttered Ermengard. I—I like yours. Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father. Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If you have a father who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart, he frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your lesson-books at least, and it is not improbable that he will feel you ought to be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write a French exercise. Ermengard was a severe trial to Miss St. John. He could not understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably dull creature who never shone in anything. Good heavens! he had said more than once as he stared at her.  If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing entirely when she had learned it, Ermengard was strikingly like her. She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied. She must be made to learn, her father said to Miss Minchin. Say, Ermengard spent the greater part of her life in disgrace or in tears. She learned things and forgot them, or if she remembered them she did not understand them. So it was natural that, having made Sarah's acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound admiration. You can speak French, can't you? she said respectfully. Sarah got onto the window-seed, which was a big, deep one, and tucking up her feet, sat with her hands clasped around her knees. I can speak it because I have heard it all my life, she answered. You could speak it if you had always heard it. Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengard. I never could speak it. Why?" inquired Sarah curiously. Ermengard shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled. You heard me just now, she said. I'm always like that. I can't say the words. They're so queer. She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of oar in her voice. You're clever, aren't you? Sarah looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows were hopping and twittering on the wet iron railings and the sooty branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it said very often that she was clever, and she wondered if she was, and if she was, how it had happened. I don't know," she said. I can't tell. Then, seeing a mournful look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the subject. Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired. Who is Emily?" Ermengard asked, just as Miss Minchin had done. Come up to my room and see," said Sarah, holding out her hand. They jumped down from the window-seat together and went upstairs. Is it true, Ermengard whispered, as they went through the hall, is it true that you have a play-room all to yourself? Yes," Sarah answered. Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have one because—well, it was because when I play I make up stories and tell them to myself, and I don't like people to hear me. It spoils it if I think people listen. They had reached the passage leading to Sarah's room by this time, and Ermengard stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath. You make up stories," she gasped. Can you do that as well as speak French? Can you?" Sarah looked at her in simple surprise. Why, any one can make up things, she said. Have you never tried? She put her hand, warningly, on Ermengard's. Let us go very quietly to the door, she whispered, and then I will open it quite suddenly, and perhaps we may catch her. She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her eyes which fascinated Ermengard, though she had not the remotest idea what it meant or whom it was she wanted to catch or why she wanted to catch her. Whatsoever she meant, Ermengard was sure it was something delightfully exciting. So quite thrilled with expectation, she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. They made not the least noise until they reached the door. Then Sarah suddenly turned the handle and threw it wide open. Its opening revealed the room quite neat and quiet, a fire gently burning in the grate, and a wonderful doll sitting in a chair by it, apparently reading a book. Oh! she got back to her seat before we could see her, Sarah explained. Of course they always do. They're as quick as lightning. Ermengard looked from her to the doll and back again. Can she walk? She asked breathlessly. Yes, answered Sarah. At least I believe she can. At least I pretend I believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true. Have you never pretended things? No, said Ermengard. Never. I—tell me about it. She was so bewitched by this odd new companion that she actually stared at Sarah instead of at Emily, notwithstanding that Emily was the most attractive doll person she had ever seen.  It's so easy that when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always, and it's beautiful. Emily, you must listen. This is Ermengard St. John Emily. Ermengard, this is Emily. Would you like to hold her? Oh, may I, said Ermengard. May I really? She's beautiful. And Emily was put into our arms. Never in her dull, short life had Miss St. John dreamed of such an hour as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they heard the lunchbell ring and were obliged to go downstairs. Sarah sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things. She sat rather huddled up and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She told stories of the voyage and stories of India, but what fascinated Ermengard the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and talked and who could do anything they choose when the human beings were out of the room, but who must keep their powers as secret and so flew back to their places like lightning when people returned to the room. We couldn't do it, said Sarah seriously. You see, it's a kind of magic. Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily, Ermengard saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over it and put out the light in her shining eyes.  Ermengard had an idea that if she had been like any other little girl, she might have suddenly burst out sobbing and crying. But she did not. Have you a... a pain? Ermengard ventured. Yes, Sarah answered after a moment's silence. But it is not in my body. Then she added something in a low voice which she tried to keep quite steady, and it was this. Do you love your father more than anything else in the whole world? Ermengard's mouth fell open a little. She knew that it would be far from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say that it had never occurred to you that you could love your father, that you would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in his society for ten minutes. She was indeed greatly embarrassed. I... I scarcely ever see him, she stammered. He is always in the library, reading things. I love mine more than all the world ten times over, Sarah said. That is what my pain is. He has gone away.  She's going to cry out loud, thought Ermengard fearfully. But she did not. Her short black locks tumbled about her ears and she sat still. Then she spoke without lifting her head. I promised him I would bear it, she said, and I will. You have to bear things. Think what soldiers bear. Carpe's a soldier. If there was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, deep wounds. And he would never say a word, not one word. Ermengard could only gaze at her. But she felt that she was beginning to adore her. She was so wonderful and different from anyone else.  If I go on talking and talking, she said, and telling you things about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don't forget, but you bear it better. Ermengard did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes felt as if tears were in them. Lavinia and Jesse are best friends, she said rather huskily. I wish we could be best friends. Would you have me for yours?  I'm glad of that, said Sarah. It makes you thankful when you are liked. Yes, we will be friends. And I'll tell you what, a sudden gleam lighting her face, I can help you with your French lessons. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would have learned nothing. Privately, Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a desirable pupil which to leave her school. She knew quite well that if Sarah wrote to her Papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy, Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin's opinion was that if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so treated. Accordingly, Sarah was praised for her quickness at her lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils, for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full little purse. The simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a virtue, and if she had not had at this position and a clever little brain, she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things over to Ermengard as time went on. Things happened to people by accident, she used to say. A lot of nice accidents have happened to me. It just happened that I always liked lessons and books and could remember things when I learned them. It just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice and clever and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good tempered? I don't know, looking quite serious, how I shall ever find out whether I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I am a hideous child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials. Lavinia has no trials, said Ermengard stolidly, and she is horrid enough. Sarah rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively as she thought the matter over. Well, she said at last, perhaps—perhaps that is because Lavinia is growing. This was the result of a charitable recollection of having heard Miss Melia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she believed it affected her health and temper. Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sarah. Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the school. She had led because she was capable of making herself extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her.  She was rather pretty, and had been the best dressed pupil in the procession when the select seminary walked out two by two, until Sarah's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter enough. But as time went on, it became apparent that Sarah was a leader too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because she never did. There's one thing about Sarah Crue, Jesse had enraged her best friend by saying honestly, she's never grand about herself the least bit, and you know she might be lavy. I believe I couldn't help being just a little, if I had so many fine things, and was made such a fuss over. It's disgusting the way Miss Minchin shows her off when parents come. Dear Sarah, must come into the drawing-room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave about India, mimicked Lavinia in her most highly flavoured imitation of Miss Minchin. Dear Sarah, must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her accent is so perfect. She didn't learn her French at the seminary at any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up because she always heard her papa speak it. And as to her papa, there is nothing so grand in being an Indian officer. Well, said Jesse slowly, he's killed tigers. He killed the one in the skin Sarah has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on it and strokes its head and talks to it as if it was a cat. She's always doing something silly, snapped Lavinia. My mama says that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow up eccentric. It was quite true that Sarah was never grand. She was a friendly little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand. The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out of the way by mature ladies age ten and twelve, were never made to cry by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bomb-borne or some other article of soothing nature.  If you are full, you are full," she said severely to Lavinia, on an occasion of her having, it must be confessed, slapped Lottie and called her a brat. But you will be five next year, and six the year after that. And, opening large, convicting eyes, it takes sixteen years to make you twenty. Dear me, said Lavinia, how we can calculate. In fact, it was not to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty, and twenty was an age the most daring was scarcely bold enough to dream of. So the younger children adored Sarah. More than once she had been known to have a tea-party made up of these despised ones in her own room, and Emily had been played with, and Emily's own tea-service used, the one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened, weak tea, and had blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set before. From that afternoon Sarah was regarded as a goddess and a queen by the entire alphabet class. Lottie Leigh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sarah had not been a motherly person she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine what else to do with her.  When she wanted anything, or did not want anything, she wept and howled, and, as she always wanted the things she could not have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in whales in one part of the house or another. Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up people talking her over in the early days after her mother's death. So it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge. The first time Sarah took her in charge was one morning when, on passing a sitting-room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to suppress the angry whales of some child who evidently refused to be silenced. She refused so strenuously, indeed, that Miss Minchin was obliged to almost shout, in a stately and severe manner, to make herself heard. What is she crying for? She almost yelled, Oh, oh, oh. Sarah heard, I haven't got any mama. Oh, Lottie, screamed Miss Amelia, do stop darling, don't cry, please don't.  Lottie howled tempestuously, haven't got any mama. She ought to be whipped, Miss Minchin proclaimed.  Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss Minchin's voice rose until it almost thundered. Then suddenly she sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flunked out of the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter. Sarah had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or amiable. Oh, Sarah! she exclaimed, endeavouring to produce a suitable smile. I stopped, explained Sarah, because I knew it was Lottie, and I thought, perhaps, just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try Miss Minchin?  Then seeing that Sarah looked slightly chilled by her asperity, she changed her manner. But you are clever in everything, she said in her approving way. I daresay you can manage her. Go in. And she left her. When Sarah entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending over her inconsternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method and then another. Poor darling, she said one moment. I know you haven't any mama, poor, then in quite another tone. If you don't stop Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel, there!  Sarah went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better not to say such different kinds of things quite so hopelessly and excitedly. Miss Amelia, she said in a low voice, Miss Minchin says I may try to make her stop. May I? Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. Oh, do you think you can? she gasped. I don't know whether I can, answered Sarah, still in her half-whisper, but I will try.  If you will steal out of the room, said Sarah, I will stay with her. Oh, Sarah! almost whispered Miss Amelia. We never had such dreadful child before. I don't believe we can keep her. But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an excuse for doing it. Sarah stood by the howling, furious child for a few moments, and looked down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down on the floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie's angry screams, the room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss Lay, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people protest and implore and commanding coax by turns. To lie and kick and shriek, and find the only person near you, not seeming to mind at the least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut, streaming eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl. But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things, and she was looking at her steadily, and as if she was merely thinking. Having paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must begin again. But the quiet of the room, and of Sarah's odd, interested face, made her first howl rather half-hearted. I haven't any ma-ma-ha, she announced. But her voice was not so strong. Sarah looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of understanding in her eyes. Neither of eye, she said. This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also, it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minjin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sarah, little as she knew her. She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and after a sulky sob, said, Where is she? Sarah paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mama was in heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts had not been quite like those of other people. She went to heaven, she said, but I am sure she comes out sometimes to see me, though I don't see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room. Lottie sat both upright and looked about her. She was a pretty little curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet-figet-minots. If her mama had seen her during the last half-hour, she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be related to an angel. Sarah went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had been told that her mama had wings and a crown, and she had been shown pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns who were said to be angels. But Sarah seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely country where real people were. There are fields and fields of flowers, she said, forgetting herself as usual when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream. Fields and fields of lilies, and when the soft wind blows over them, it wafts the scent of them into the air, and everybody always breathes it, because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about in the lily-fields and gather armfuls of them and laugh and make little wreaths. And the streets are shining, and people are never tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like, and there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are low enough for the people to go and lean on them and look down into the earth and smile and send beautiful messages. Whatsoever story she had begun to tell, Lottie would no doubt have stopped crying and been fascinated into listening, but there was no denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged herself close to Sarah and drank in every word until the end came, far too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip ominously. I want to go there," she cried. I haven't any mama in this school. Sarah saw the danger signal and came out of her dream. She took hold of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing little laugh. I will be your mama," she said.  Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves. Shall she?" she said. Yes, answered Sarah, jumping to her feet.  To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully and trotted out of the room and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole of the last hour's tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been called in to use her majestic authority. And from that time Sarah was an adopted mother. End of Chapter 4 Of course the greatest power Sarah possessed, and the one which gained her even more followers than her luxuries than the fact that she was the show pupil, the power that Lavinia and certain other girls were most envious of, and at the same time most fascinated by in spite of themselves, was her power of telling stories, and of making everything she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one or not. Anyone who has been at school with a teller of stories knows what the wonder means, how he or she has followed about and besought in a whisper to relate romances, how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts of the favourite party in the hope of being allowed to join in and listen. Sarah not only could tell stories, but she adored telling them. When she sat or stood in the midst of a circle and began to invent wonderful things, her green eyes grew big and shining, her cheeks flushed, and without knowing that she was doing it, she began to act, and made what she told lovely or alarming by the raising or dropping of her voice, the bend and sway of her slim body, and the dramatic movement of her hands. She forgot that she was talking to listening children. She saw and lived with the fairy folk, or the kings and queens and beautiful ladies, whose adventures she was narrating. Sometimes, when she had finished her story, she was quite out of breath with excitement, and would lay her hand on her thin little quick rising chest and half laugh as if at herself. When I am telling it, she would say, it doesn't seem as if it was only made up. It seems more real than you are, more real than the schoolroom. I feel as if I were all the people in the story, one after the other. It is queer. She had been at Miss Mention's school about two years when one foggy winter's afternoon as she was getting out of her carriage, comfortably wrapped up in her warmest velvets and furs, and looking very much grander than she knew, she caught sight as she crossed the pavement of a dingy little figure standing on the area steps and stretching its neck so that its wide open eyes might peer at her through the railings. Something in the eagerness and timidity of the smudgy face made her look at it, and when she looked she smiled, because it was her way to smile at people. But the owner of the smudgy face and the wide open eyes evidently was afraid that she ought not to have been caught looking at pupils of importance. She dodged out of sight like a jack-in-the-box and scurried back into the kitchen, disappearing so suddenly that if she had not been a poor little forlorn thing, Sarah would have laughed in spite of herself. That very evening, as Sarah was sitting in the midst of a group of listeners in a corner of the schoolroom telling one of her stories, the very same figure timidly entered the room, carrying a coal-box much too heavy for her, and knelt down on the hearth rug to replenish the fire and sweep up the ashes. She was cleaner than she had been when she peeped through the area railings, but she looked just as brightened. She was evidently afraid to look at the children or seem to be listening. She put on pieces of coal cautiously with her fingers so that she might make no disturbing noise, and she swept about the fire-iron very softly. But Sarah saw in two minutes that she was deeply interested in what was going on, and that she was doing her work slowly in the hope of catching a word here and there, and realizing this, she raised her voice and spoke more clearly. The mermaid swam softly about in the crystal-green water, and dragged after them a fishing net woven of deep sea pearls, she said. The princess sat on a white rock and watched them. It was a wonderful story about a princess who was loved by a prince-merman, and went to live with him in shining caves under the sea. The small drudge before the grate swept the hearth once full, and then swept it again. Having done it twice, she did it three times, and as she was doing it the third time, the sound of the story so lured her to listen that she fell under the spell and actually forgot that she had no right to listen at all, and also forgot everything else. She sat upon her heels as she knelt on the hearth rug, and the brush hung idly in her fingers. The voice of the storyteller went on, and drew her with it into winding grottos under the sea, glowing with soft, clear blue light, and paved with pure golden sands. Strange sea-flowers and grasses waved about her, and far away faint singing and music echoed. The hearth brush fell from the work roughened hand, and Lavinia Herbert looked round. That girl has been listening, she said. The culprits snatched up her brush and scrambled to her feet. She caught at the coal-box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit. Sarah felt rather hot-tempered. I knew she was listening, she said. Why shouldn't she? Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance. Well, she remarked, I do not know whether your mama would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know my mama wouldn't like me to do it. My mama, said Sarah, looking odd. I don't believe she would mind in the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody. I thought, retorted Lavinia in severe recollection, that your mama was dead. How can she know things? Do you think she doesn't know things? said Sarah, in her stern little voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice. Sarah's mama knows everything, piped in Lottie. So does my mama, except Sarah's my mama at Miss Minchin's. My other one knows everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sarah tells me when she puts me to bed. You wicked thing! said Lavinia, turning on Sarah, making fairy stories about heaven. There are much more splendid stories in Revelation, returned Sarah. Just look and see. How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you, with a fine bit of unheavenly temper, you will never find out whether they are or not, if you're not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie. And she marched out of the room, rather hoping that she might see the little servant again somewhere. But she found no trace of her when she got into the hall. Who is that little girl who makes the fires? She asked Mariette that night. Mariette broke forth into a flow of description. Ah! Mademoiselle Sarah might well ask. She was a forlorn little thing, who had just taken the place of scullery-maid. Though, as to being scullery-maid, she was everything else besides. She blacked boots and grates, and carried heavy coal-scuttles up and down stairs, and scrubbed floors in cleaned windows, and was ordered about by everybody. She was fourteen years old, but was so stunted in growth that she looked about twelve. In truth, Mariette was sorry for her. She was so timid, that if one chance to speak to her, it appeared as if her poor frightened eyes would jump out of her head. What is her name? asked Sarah, who had sat by the table with her chin on her hands as she listened absorbently to the recital. Her name was Becky. Mariette had everyone below stairs calling, Becky do this and Becky do that every five minutes in the day. Sarah sat and looked into the fire, reflecting on Becky for some time after Mariette left her. She made up a story of which Becky was the ill-used heroine. She thought she looked as if she had never quite enough to eat. Her eyes were very hungry. She hoped she should see her again, but though she caught sight of her carrying things up or down stairs on several occasions, she always seemed in such a hurry, or so afraid of being seen, that it was impossible to speak to her. But a few weeks later, on another foggy afternoon, when she entered her sitting-room, she found herself confronting a rather pathetic picture.  She had been sent up to put the bedrooms in order for the evening. There were a great many of them, and she had been running about all day. Sarah's rooms she had saved until the last. They were not like the other rooms, which were plain and bare. Ordinary pupils were expected to be satisfied with mere necessaries. Sarah's comfortable sitting-rooms seemed a bar of luxury to the scullery-maid, though it was, in fact, merely a nice, bright little room. But there were pictures and books in it, and curious things from India. There was a sofa and the low, soft chair. Emily sat in the chair of her own, with the air of a presiding goddess, and there was always a glowing fire and a polished grate. Becky saved it until the end of her afternoon's work, because it rested her to go into it, and she always hoped to snatch a few minutes to sit down in the soft chair and look about her, and think about the wonderful good fortune of the child who owns such surroundings, and who went out on the cold days in beautiful hats and coats one tried to catch a glimpse of through the area railing. On this afternoon, when she had sat down, the sensation of relief to her short, aching legs had been so wonderful and delightful that it had seemed to soothe her whole body, and the glow of warmth and comfort from the fire had crept over her like a spell, until, as she looked at the red coals, a tired, slow smile stole over her smudged face, her head nodded forward without her being aware of it, her eyes drooped, and she fell fast asleep. She had really been only about ten minutes in the room when Sarah entered, but she was in as deep a sleep as if she had been like the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering for a hundred years. But she did not look, poor Becky, like a Sleeping Beauty at all.  Sarah seemed as much unliker as if she were a creature from another world. On this particular afternoon she had been taking her dancing lesson, and the afternoon on which the dancing master appeared was rather a grand occasion at the seminary, though it occurred every week. The pupils were attired in their prettiest fox, and as Sarah dugs particularly well, she was very much brought forward, and Mariette was requested to make her as diaphanous and fine as possible. Today a frock the colour of a rose had been put on her, and Mariette had brought some real buds and made her a wreath to wear on her black locks. She had been learning a new delightful dance in which she had been skimming and flying about the room, like a large rose-coloured butterfly, and the enjoyment and exercise had brought a brilliant happy glow into her face. When she entered the room, she floated in with a few of the butterfly steps, and there sat Becky, nodding her cap sideways off her head. Oh! cried Sarah softly when she saw her. That poor thing! It did not occur to her to feel cross at finding her pet chair occupied by the small, dingy creature. To tell the truth, she was quite glad to find it there. When the ill-used heroine of her story wakened, she could talk to her. She crept toward her quietly and stood looking at her. Becky gave a little snore. I wish she'd waken herself, Sarah said. I don't like to waken her. But Miss Minchin would be cross if she found out. I'll just wait a few minutes. She took a seat on the edge of the table, and sat swinging her slim, rose-coloured legs, and wondering what it would be best to do. Miss Amelia might come in at any moment, and if she did, Becky would be sure to be scolded. She is so tired, she thought. She is so tired. A piece of flaming coal ended her perplexity for her that very moment. It broke off from a large lump and fell onto the fender. Becky started and opened her eyes with a frightened gasp. She did not know that she had fallen asleep. She had only sat down for one moment and felt the beautiful glow. And here she found herself staring on wild alarm at the wonderful pupil who sat perched quite near her, like a rose-coloured fairy with interested eyes. She sprang up and clutched at her cap. She felt it dangling over her ear and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh! she had got herself into trouble now with a vengeance. To have impudently fallen asleep on such a young lady's chair, she would be turned out of doors without wages. She made a sound like a big breathless sob. Oh, Miss! Oh, Miss! She started. I asked you pardon, Miss. Oh, I do miss. Sarah jumped down and came quite close to her. Don't be frightened, she said, quite as if she had been speaking to a little girl like herself. It doesn't matter the least bit. I didn't go to do it, Miss, protested Becky. It was the warm fire in me being so tired. It—it wasn't impertience. Sarah broke into a friendly little laugh and put her hand on her shoulder. You were tired, she said. You could not help it. You're not really awake yet. How poor Becky stared at her. In fact, she had never heard such a nice friendly sound in any one's voice before. She was used to being ordered about and scolded and having her ears boxed. And this one, in her rose-colored dancing afternoon splendor, was looking at her if she was not a culprit at all, as if she had a right to be tired, even to fall asleep. The touch of the soft, slim little paw on her shoulder was the most amazing thing she had ever known. Ain't—Ain't you angry, Miss?" she gasped. Ain't you going to tell the Misses? No, cried out Sarah. Of course I'm not. The woeful fright in the cold-smutted face made her suddenly so sorry that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer thoughts rushed into her mind. She put her hand against Becky's cheek. Why, she said, We are just the same.   Becky did not understand, at the least. Her mind could not grasp such amazing thoughts and an accident meant to her a calamity in which someone was run over or fell off a ladder and was carried to the hospital. Uh, accident, Miss, she fluttered respectfully. Is it? Yes, Sarah answered, and she looked at her dreamily for a moment. But the next she spoke in a different tone. She realized that Becky did not know what she meant. Have you done your work? She asked. Dare you stay here a few minutes? Becky lost her breath again. Hey, Miss! Me? Sarah ran to the door and opened it and looked out and listened. No one is anywhere about, she explained.   The next ten minutes seemed to Becky like a sort of delirium. Sarah opened the cupboard and gave her a thick slice of cake. She seemed to rejoice when it was devoured in hungry bites. She talked and asked questions and laughed until Becky's fears actually began to calm themselves, and she once or twice gathered boldness enough to ask a question or so herself, daring as she felt it to be. Is that, she ventured, looking longingly at the rose-coloured frock, and she asked it almost in a whisper, Is that fair your best? It is one of my dancing frocks, answered Sarah. I like it, don't you? For a few seconds Becky was almost speechless with admiration. Then she said in an awed voice, Once I see a princess. I was standing in the street with the crowd outside Covent Garden, watching the swells go into the opera. And there was one everyone stared at most, and they said to each other, That's the princess. She was a growed-up young lady, but she was pink all over and gowned and cloaked and flowers and all. I called her to mind the minute I see you sitting there on the table, Miss. You look like her. I've often thought, said Sarah, in her reflecting voice, that I should like to be a princess. I wonder what it feels like. I believe I will begin pretending I am one. Becky stared at her admiringly, and as before did not understand her in the least. She watched her with a sort of adoration. Very soon Sarah left her reflections and turned to her with a new question. Becky, she said, Weren't you listening to that story? Yes, Miss, confessed Becky a little alarmed again. I knowed I had nought to her, but it was out-beautiful. I couldn't help it. I liked you to listen to it, said Sarah. If you tell stories, you like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to listen. I don't know why it is. Would you like to hear the rest? Becky lost her breath again. May you hear it? she cried, like as if I was a pupil, Miss. All about for Prince and the little white mer baby swimming about and laughing with the stars in their air. Sarah nodded. You haven't time to hear it now, I'm afraid, she said. But if you will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. It's a lovely long one, and I'm always putting new bits to it. Then, breathed Becky devoutly, I wouldn't mind how heavy the co-boxes was, or what the cook done to me, if I might have that to think of. You may, said Sarah, I'll tell it all to you. When Becky went downstairs, she was not the same Becky who had staggered up, loaded down by the weight of this coal-scuttle.  Something else had warmed and fed her, and the something else was Sarah. When she was gone, Sarah sat on her favorite perch on the end of her table. Her feet were on a chair, her elbows on her knees, and her chin was in her hands. If I was a princess, a real princess, she murmured, I could scatter largesse to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people, things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largesse. I'll pretend that to do things people like is scattering largesse. I've scattered largesse. CHAPTER VI Not very long after this, a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sarah, but the entire school found it exciting, and made it the chief subject of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters, Captain Crue told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all went as was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such wealth as made one busy to think of. And because he was fond of the friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to share in this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at least, was what Sarah gathered from his letters. It is true that any other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small attraction for her or for the schoolroom. But diamond mines sounded so like the Arabian knights that no one could be indifferent. Sarah thought them enchanting in painted pictures for Ermengard and Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengard delighted in the story, and Lottie insisted on its being re-told to her every evening. Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and told Jesse that she didn't believe such things as diamond mines existed. My mama has a diamond ring which cost forty pounds, she said, and it is not a big one either. If there were mines full of diamonds, people would be so rich it would be ridiculous. Perhaps Sarah will be so rich she will be ridiculous, giggled Jesse. She's ridiculous without being rich, Lavinia sniffed. I believe you hate her, said Jesse. No, I don't, snapped Lavinia, but I don't believe in mines full of diamonds. Well, people have to get them from somewhere, said Jesse. Lavinia, with a new giggle. What do you think Gertrude says? I don't know, I'm sure, and I don't care if it's something more about that everlasting Sarah. Well, it is. One of her pretends is that she is a princess. She plays it all the time, even in school. She says it makes her learn her lessons better. She wants Ermengard to be one too, but Ermengard says she is too fat. She is too fat, said Lavinia, and Sarah is too thin. Naturally, Jesse giggled again. She says it has nothing to do with what you look like or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do. I suppose she thinks she could be a princess if she was a beggar, said Lavinia. Let us begin to call her your royal highness. Lessons for the day were over, and they were sitting before the schoolroom fire, enjoying the time they liked best. It was the time when Miss Minchin and Miss Emilia were taking their tea in the sitting-room's sacred to themselves. At this hour a great deal of talking was done, and a great many secrets changed hands, particularly if the younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run about noisily, which it must be confessed they usually did. When they made an uproar, the older girls usually interfered with scolding and shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if they did not, Miss Minchin or Miss Emilia would appear and put an end to festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke, the door opened and Sarah ended with Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little dog. There she is with that horrid child, exclaimed Lavinia in a whisper. If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she keep her in her own room? She will begin howling about something in five minutes. It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in the schoolroom, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sarah curled herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It was a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille, men who had spent so many years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who rescued them, their long gray hair and beards almost hid their faces, and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and they were like beings in a dream. She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage. It makes me feel as if someone had hit me, Sarah had told Ermingard once in confidence, and as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered. She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book down on the window-seat and jumped down from a comfortable corner.  She was screaming and dancing up and down in the midst of a group of friends and enemies who were alternately coaxing and scolding her.  Stop this minute! Lavinia commanded. I'm not a crybaby! I'm not! wailed Lottie. Sarah! Sarah! If she doesn't stop Miss Minjum will hear her. Cryed Jesse. Lottie, darling, I'll give you a penny. I don't want your penny, sobbed Lottie, and she looked down at the fat knee and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth again. Sarah flew across the room and kneeling down put her arms around her. Now, Lottie, she said. Now, Lottie, you promised Sarah. She said I was a crybaby, wept Lottie. Sarah padded her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew. But if you cry, you will be one Lottie-pet. You promised. Lottie remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to lift up her voice. I haven't any mama, she proclaimed. I haven't a bit of mama. Yes, you have, said Sarah cheerfully. Have you forgotten? Don't you know that Sarah is your mama? Don't you want Sarah for your mama? Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff. Come and sit in the window-seat with me, Sarah went on, and I'll whisper a story to you. Will you, whimpered Lottie, will you tell me about the diamond mines? The diamond mines, broke out Levinia. Nasty little spoiled thing, I should like to slap her. Sarah got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille, and she had had to recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go and take care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was not fond of Levinia. Well, she said with some fire, I should like to slap you, but I don't want to slap you, restraining herself. At least, I both want to slap you, and I should like to slap you, but I won't slap you. We are not little gutted children. We are both old enough to know better. Here was Levinia's opportunity. Ah, yes, your royal highness, she said. We are princesses, I believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very fashionable, now Miss Minjin has a princess for a pupil. Sarah started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new pretend about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Levinia deriding it before nearly all the school.  She only just saved herself. If you were a princess you did not fly into rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice. She held her head up, and everybody listened to her. It's true, she said. Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess so that I can try and behave like one. Levinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several times she had found that she could not think of a satisfactory reply when she was dealing with Sarah. The reason for this was that, somehow, the rest always seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She saw now that they were pricking up their ears, interestingly. The truth was, they liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear something more definite about this one, and drew nearer Sarah accordingly. Levinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat. Dear me, she said, I hope when you ascend the throne you won't forget us. I won't," said Sarah, and she did not utter another word, but stood quite still instead at her steadily as she saw her take Jesse's arm and turn away. After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as Princess Sarah whenever they wished to be particularly disdainful, and those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term of affection. No one called her Princess instead of Sarah, but her adorers were much pleased with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal boarding school. To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The acquaintance began on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia knew very little about it. They were aware that Sarah was kind to the scullery maid, but they knew nothing of certain delightful moments snatched perilously when the upstairs rooms being set in order with lightning rapidity Sarah's sitting-room was reached and the heavy coal-box set down with a sigh of joy. At such time stories were told by installments, things of a satisfying nature were either produced and eaten, or hastily tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night when Becky went upstairs to her attic to bed. But I asked to eat some care for Miss, she said once, because if I leave crumbs the rats comes out to get them. Rats! exclaimed Sarah in horror. Are there rats there? Lots of them miss, Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner. There mostly is rats in my sonatics. You get used to the noise they make scuttling about. I've got so I don't mind them as long as they don't run over my pillar. Ugh! said Sarah. You get used to anything after a bit, said Becky. You have to miss if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats than cockroaches. So would I, said Sarah. I suppose you might make friends with a rat in time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends with a cockroach. Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in the bright, warm room, and when this was the case, perhaps only a few words could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into the old-fashioned pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt, tied round her waist with a band of tape. The search for and discovery of satisfying things to eat which could be packed into small compass added a new interest to Sarah's existence. When she drove or walked out, she used to look into shop windows eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home two or three little meat pies, she felt that she had hit upon a discovery. When she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled. Oh! miss! she murmured. Them will be nice and filling. It's fillin'-ness that's best. Sponge cake's an heavenly thing. But it melts away like, if you understand, miss. These will just stay in your stomach. Well, hesitated Sarah, I don't think it would be good if they stayed always, but I do believe they will be satisfying. They were satisfying, and so were beef sandwiches, bought at the cook shop, and so were rolls and bologna sausage. In time Becky began to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not seem so unbearably heavy. However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook and the hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the chance of the afternoon to look forward to, but chance that Miss Sarah would be able to be in her sitting-room. In fact, the mere seeing of Miss Sarah would have been enough without meat pies. If there was time only for a few words, there were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one. And if there was time for more, then there was an instalment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterwards, and sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic the thing over. Sarah, who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than anything else, nature having made her for a giver, had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart, and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that. Warm things, kind things, sweet things, help and comfort and laughter, and sometimes gay, kind laughter, is the best help of all. Becky had scarcely known what laughter was, all through her poor, little, hard-driven life. Sarah made her laugh and loved with her, and though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as filling as the meat pies. A few weeks before Sarah's eleventh birthday, a letter came to her from her father which should not seem to be written in such boyish, high spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently over-weighted by the business connected with the diamond mines. You see, little Sarah, he wrote, your daddy is not a businessman at all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps if I was not feverish I should not be awake, tossing about one half of the night, and spend the other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus were here, I dare say she would give me some solemn, good advice.   He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among other things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to the letter asking her if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sarah had been very quaint. I am getting very old, she wrote. You see, I shall never live to have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem about a last doll would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. I have tried and it made me laugh. It did not sound like Watts or Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one could ever take Emily's place, but I should respect the last doll very much, and I am sure the school would love it. They all like dolls, though some of the big ones, the almost fifteen ones, pretend they are two grown up. Captain Crue had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread. But he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks. Oh! he said, she's better fun every year she lives. God grant this business may write itself and leave me free to run home and see her. What wouldn't I give to have her little arms round my neck this minute? What wouldn't I give? The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. The school room was to be decorated, and there was to be a party. The boxes containing the presents were to be opened with great ceremony, and there was to be a glittering feast spread in Miss Minchin's sacred room. When the day arrived the whole house was in a whirl of excitement, how the morning passed nobody quite knew, because there seemed such preparations to be made. The school room was being decked with garlands of holly, the desks had been moved away, and red covers had been put on the forms which were arrayed around the room against the wall. When Sarah went into her sitting-room in the morning she found on the table a small dumpy package tied up with a piece of brown paper. She knew it was a present, and she thought she could guess whom it came from. She opened it quite tenderly. It was a square pincushion, made of not quite clean red flannel, and black pins have been stuck carefully into it to form the words, many happy returns. Oh! cried Sarah with a warm feeling in her heart. What pain she has taken! I like it so it it makes me feel sorrowful. At the next moment she was mystified. On the underside of the pincushion was secured a card bearing the neat letters the name Miss Amelia mentioned. Sarah turned it over and over. Miss Amelia, she said to herself, how can it be? And just at that very moment she heard the door being cautiously pushed open and saw Becky peeping rounded. There was an affectionate happy grin on her face, and she shuffled forward and stood nervously pulling at her fingers. Do you like it, Miss Sarah? she said. Do you? Like it! cried Sarah.  Becky gave a hysteric but joyful sniff, and her eyes looked quite moist with delight. It ain't nothing but flannin', and the flannin' ain't new, but I wanted to give you something, and I made it of knikes. I knew you could pretend it was satin' with diamond pins in. I tried to when I was makin' it. The card, Miss, rather doubtfully, twerked wrong on me to pick it out of the dustbin, was it? Miss Amelia drove it away. I had no card of my own, and I knowed it wouldn't be a proper pressing if I didn't pin a card on, so I pinned Miss Amelia's. Sarah flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told herself or anyone else why there was a lump in her throat.  I love you, Becky. I do, I do. Oh, Miss, breathed Becky. Thank you, Miss, kindly. It ain't good enough for that. The—the flannin' wasn't new. CHAPTER VII The Diamond Minds Again When Sarah entered the Holly Hung schoolroom in the afternoon, she did so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Minchin, in her grandest silk dress, led her by the hand. A man's servant followed, carrying the box containing the last doll. A housemate carried a second box, and Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third, and wearing a clean apron and a new cap. Sarah would much have preferred to enter in the usual way, but Miss Minchin had sent for her, and after an interview in her private sitting-room, had expressed her wishes. This is not an ordinary occasion, she said. I do not desire that it should be treated as one. So Sarah was led grandly in and felt shy when, on her entry, the big girl stared at her and touched each other's elbows, and the little ones began to squirm joyously in their seats. Silence, young ladies, said Miss Minchin, at the murmur which arose. James placed the box on the table and removed the lid. Emma put yours upon a chair. Becky! suddenly and severely. Becky had quite forgotten herself in her excitement, and was grinning at Lottie, who was wriggling with rapturous expectation. She almost dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and her frightened, bobbing, curtsy of apology was so funny that LaVinia and Jesse titted. It is not your place to look at the young ladies, said Miss Minchin. You forget yourself. Put your box down. Becky obeyed with alarmed haste, and hastily backed toward the door. You may leave us, Miss Minchin announced to the servants with a wave of her hand. Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants to pass out first. She could not help casting a longing glance at the box on the table. Something made of blue satin was peeping from between the folds of tissue paper. If you please, Miss Minchin, said Sarah suddenly, maint Becky's stay. It was a bold thing to do. Miss Minchin was betrayed into something like a slight jump. Then she put her eyeglass up and gazed at her show pupil disturbently. Becky! she exclaimed. My dearest Sarah! Sarah advanced to step toward her. I want her because I know she would like to see the presence, she explained. She is a little girl too, you know. Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other. My dear Sarah! she said. Becky is the scullerymaid. Scullerymaids are not little girls. It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. Scullerymaids were machines who carried coal-scuttles and made fires. But Becky is, said Sarah, and I know that she would enjoy herself. Please let her stay, because it is my birthday. Miss Minchin replied with much dignity. As you ask it as a birthday favour, she may stay. Rebecca, thank Miss Sarah for her great kindness. Becky had been backing into the corner, twisting the hem of her apron in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but between Sarah's eyes and her own, there passed a gleam of friendly understanding, while her words tumbled over each other. Oh, if it please, Miss! I'm that great for Miss. I did want to see the door, Miss, that I did. Thank you, Miss. And thank you, ma'am. Turning and making an alarm, bobbed to Miss Minchin, for letting me take the liberty. Miss Minchin waved her hand again. This time it was in the direction of the corner near the door. Go and stand there, she commanded, not too near the young ladies. Becky went to her place grinning. She did not care where she was sent, so that she might have the luck of being inside the room, instead of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights were going on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her throat ominously and spoke again.  She's going to make a speech, whispered one of the girls. I wish it was over. Sarah felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was probable that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a school room and have a speech made about you. You are aware, young ladies, the speech began, for it was a speech. That dear Sarah is eleven years old today. Dear Sarah! murmured Lavinia. Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Sarah's birthdays are rather different from other little girl's birthdays. When she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it will be her duty to spend in a meritorious manner. The diamond mines! giggled Jesse in a whisper. Sarah did not hear her. But as she stood with her green, grey eyes fixed steadily on Miss Minchin, she felt herself growing rather hot. When Miss Minchin talked about money, she felt somehow that she always hated her.  When her dear Papa, Captain Crue, brought her from India and gave her into my care, the speech proceeded, he said to me in a jesting way, I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin. My reply was, Her education at my seminary, Captain Crue, shall be such as will adorn the largest fortune. Sarah has become my most accomplished pupil. Her French and her dancing are a credit to the seminary. Her manners, which have caused you to call her Princess Sarah, are perfect. Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this afternoon's party. I hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your appreciation of it by saying aloud altogether, Thank you, Sarah. The entire school-room rose to its feet as it had done the morning Sarah remembered so well. Thank you, Sarah, it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie jumped up and down. Sarah looked rather shy for a moment. She made a curtsy, and it was a very nice one. Thank you, she said, for coming to my party. Very pretty indeed, Sarah, approved Miss Minchin. That is what a real princess does when the populace applauds her. Lavinia, scathingly, the sound you just made was extremely like a snort. If you are jealous of your fellow pupil, I beg you will express your feelings in some more ladylike manner. Now I will leave you to enjoy yourselves. The instant she had swept out of the room, the spell her presence always had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs. The older ones wasted no time in deserting theirs. There was a rush toward the boxes. Sarah had bent over one of them with a delighted face. These are books, I know, she said. The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengard looked aghast. Does your papa send you books for a birthday present? she exclaimed. Why, he's as bad as mine. Don't open them, Sarah. I like them, Sarah laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When she took out the last doll, it was so magnificent that the children uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back the gaze at it in breathless rapture. She's almost as big as Lottie, some one gasped. Lottie clapped her hands and danced about giggling. She's dressed for the theatre, said Lavinia. Her cloak is lined with ermine. Oh! cried Ermengard darting forward.  Here is her drunk, said Sarah. Let us open it and look at her things. She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded clamouring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their contents. Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were lace collars and silk stockings and handkerchiefs. There was a jewel case containing a necklace and a tiara which looked quite as if they were made of real diamonds. There was a long seal-skin and muff. There were bold dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses. There were hats and tea-gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jesse forgot that they were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight and caught up things to look at them. Suppose, Sarah said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, black velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these splendours. Suppose she understands human talk and feels proud of being admired. You are always supposing things, said Lavinia, and her air was very superior. I know I am, answered Sarah, undisturbedly. I like it. There is nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough, it seems as if it were real. It's all very well to suppose things if you have everything, said Lavinia. Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived in a garret? Sarah stopped arranging the last doll's ostrich plumes and looked thoughtful. I believe I could, she said. If one was a beggar, one would have to suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn't be easy. She often thought afterwards how strange it was that just as she had finished saying this, just at that very moment, Miss Amelia came into the room. Sarah, she said, your Papa's solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see Miss Minchin, and as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments are laid in her parlor, you had all better come and have your feast now so that my sister can have her interview here in the schoolroom. Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many pairs of eyes gleamed.  Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties. It really was an indiscretion. Go back to your work, Becky, Miss Amelia had said, but she had stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while she stood looking at them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the threshold, and being smitten with terror at the thought of being accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted under the table which hid her by its table-cloth. Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression. She sat down with stiff dignity and waved him to a chair. Pray be seated, Mr. Barrow, she said. Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by the last doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The last doll herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright and returned his gaze indifferently. A hundred pounds, Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly, all expensive material and made it a Parisian modeste. He spent money lavishly enough that young man. Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her best patron, and was a liberty. Even solicitors had no right to take liberties. I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow, she said stiffly. I do not understand. Birthday presents, said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, to a child eleven years old. Mad extravagance, I call it. Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly. Captain Crew is a man of fortune, she said. The diamond binds alone. Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. Diamond binds, he broke out. There are none. Never were. Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair. What? she cried. What do you mean? At any rate, answered Mr. Barrow quite snappishly, it would have been much better if there never had been any. Any diamond mines, ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a chair, and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her. Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth, said Mr. Barrow. When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend, and is not a businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend's diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends want his money to put into. The late Captain Crew—here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp. The late Captain Crew—she cried out—the late! You don't mean to tell me that Captain Crew is— He's dead, ma'am. Mr. Barrow answered with jerky breastness. Died of dungle fever and business troubles combined. The dungle fever might not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business troubles, and the business troubles might not have put an end to him if the dungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crew is dead. Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken filled her with alarm. What were his business troubles, she said? What were they? Diamond mines—answered Mr. Barrow, and dear friends—and ruin. Miss Minchin lost her breath. Pruin! she gasped out. Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear friend was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money into it, and all Captain Crew's. Then the dear friend ran away. Captain Crew was already stricken with fever when the news came. The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving about his little girl, and didn't leave a penny.  Her show-pupil, her show-patron, swept away from the select seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed, and that Captain Crew and Sarah and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame.  Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make his own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay. She has certainly left a beggar, he replied, and she is certainly left on your hands, ma'am, as she hasn't a relation in the world that we know of. Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to open the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments. It is monstrous, she said. She is sitting in my sitting-room at this moment, dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my expense. She is giving it at your expense, madam, if she is giving it, said Mr. Barrow calmly. Barrow and Skipworth are not responsible for anything. There never was a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune. Captain Crew died without paying our last bill, and it was a big one. Miss Minchin turned back from the door and increased indignation. This was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being. That is what has happened to me, she cried.   The child was to have anything she wanted. She has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've paid for all of them since the last check came. Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the story of Miss Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of his firm clear and related the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular sympathy for irate keepers of boarding schools. You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, unless you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. She hasn't a brass farthing to call her own. What am I to do? demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it entirely his duty to make the matter right. What am I to do? There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. Captain Crue is dead. The child is left to pauper. Nobody is responsible for her, but you. I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible. Miss Minchin became quite white with rage. Mr. Barrow turned to go. I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said, uninterestingly. Barrow and Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry, your thing has happened, of course. If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly mistaken, Miss Minchin gasped. I have been robbed and cheated. I will turn her into the street. If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say quite so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all self-control. Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door. I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented. It wouldn't look well. Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the establishment. Pupil bundled out Penulus and without friends. He was a clever businessman, and he knew what he was saying. He also knew that Miss Minchin was a businesswoman, and would be shrewd enough to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make people speak of her as cruel and hard-hearted. But I keep her and make use of her," he added. She's a clever child, I believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she grows older. I will get a good deal out of her BEFORE she grows older," exclaimed Miss Minchin. I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow with a little sinister smile. I am sure you will. Good morning. End of Chapter 7 Part 1 Chapter 7 Part 2 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 7 continued He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be confessed that Miss Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had said was quite true. She knew it. She had absolutely no redress. Her show-pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only a friendless, beggard little girl. Such money, as she herself had advanced, was lost and could not be regained. And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had actually been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this. But as she started toward the door, it was opened by Miss Amelia, who, when she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a step in alarm. What is the matter, sister? she ejaculated. Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered, Where is Sarah, crew? Miss Amelia was bewildered. Sarah, she stammered. Why, she's with the children in your room, of course. Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe? In bitter irony.  Miss Amelia stammered again. A black one. She has frocks of every other colour. Has she a black one? Miss Amelia began to turn pale. No—yes, she said. But it is too short for her. She has only the old black velvet, and she has outgrown it.  She has done with finery.  Oh, sister! she sift. Oh, sister! what can have happened? Miss Minchin wasted no words. Captain crew is dead, she said. He has died without a penny. That spoiled, pampered, fanciful child has left a pauper on my hands. Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair. Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her, and I shall never see a penny of it. For to stop to this ridiculous party of hers, go and make her change her frock at once. I, panted Miss Amelia, must I go and tell her now? This moment was the fierce answer. Don't sit staring like a goose. Go! Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She knew, in fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing to go into the midst of a room full of delighted children, and tell the giver of the feast that she had suddenly been transformed into a little beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an old black frock which was too small for her. But the thing must be done. This was evidently not the time when questions might be asked. She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red, after which she got up and went out of the room without venturing to say another word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had done just now, the wisest cause to pursue was to obey orders without any comment. Miss Minchin walked across the room. She spoke to herself aloud without knowing that she was doing it. During the last year the story of a diamond mine since suggested all sorts of possibilities to her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make fortunes in stocks, with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking forward to gains, she was left to look back upon losses. The princess, Sarah, indeed, she said. The child has been pampered as if she were a queen. She was sweeping angrily past the corner-table as she said it, and the next moment she started at the sound of a loud sobbing sniff which issued from under the cover. What is that? she exclaimed angrily. The loud sobbing sniff was heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table cover.   Come out immediately! It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side, and her face was red with repressed crying. If you please them, it's me, Mum, she explained. I know I hadn't ought to, but I was looking at the door, Mum, and I was frightened when you came in and slipped under the table. You have been there all the time, listening, said Miss Minchin. No, Mum, Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. Not listening. I thought I could slip out with the arching noticing, but I couldn't, and I had to stay. But I didn't listen, Mum. I wouldn't for nothing. But I couldn't help hearing. Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady before her. She burst into fresh tears. Oh, please, she said, I dare say you'll give me a warning, Mum, but I'm so sorry for poor Miss Sarah. I'm so sorry. Leave the room, ordered Miss Minchin. Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks. Yes, I will, she said, trembling. But oh, I just wanted to ask you. Miss Sarah, she's been such a rich young lady, and she's been waited on and in foot, and what will she do now, Mum, without no maid? If—if—oh, please, would you let me wait on her after I've done my pots and kettles? I'd do them that quick if you'd let me wait on her now she's poor. Oh, breaking out of fresh.  Somehow she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever, that the very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child, whom she realized more fully than ever that she had never liked, was too much. She actually stamped her foot. No, certainly not, she said, she will wait on herself and on other people too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave your place. Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room and down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her pots and kettles, and wept as if her heart would break. It's exactly like the ones in the stories, she wailed, then poor princess ones that was drove into the world. Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard, as she did when Sarah came to her a few hours later, in response to a message she had sent her. Even by that time it seemed to Sarah as if the birthday party had either been a dream, or a thing which had happened years ago and had happened in the life of quite another little girl. Every sign of the festivities had been swept away. The holly had been removed from the school-room walls, and the forms and desks put back into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting-room looked as it always did. All traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside their party-frocks, and, this having been done, they had returned to the school-room and huddled together in groups, whispering and talking excitedly. Tell Sarah to come to my room, Miss Minchin had said to her sister, and explained to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant scenes. Sister, replied Miss Amelia, she is the strangest child I ever saw. She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when Captain Crue went back to India. When I told her what had happened, she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale. When I had finished, she still stood staring for a few seconds, and then her chin began to shake, and she turned round and ran out of the room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she did not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I was saying. It made me feel quite queer not to be answered, and when you tell anything sudden and strange you expect people will say something whatever it is. Nobody but Sarah herself ever knew what had happened in her room after she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own. My Papa is dead. My Papa is dead. Once she stopped before Emily, who stopped watching her from her chair, and cried out mildly, Emily, do you hear? Do you hear? Papa is dead. He is dead in India thousands of miles away. When she came into Miss Mention's sitting-room in answer to her summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked and said, a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure. She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast aside black velvet frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long and thin, showing themselves from beneath the brief skirt.  She held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was swathed in a piece of black material. Put down your doll, said Miss Mention. What do you mean by bringing her here? No, Sarah answered. I will not put her down. She is all I have. My Papa gave her to me. She had always made Miss Mention feel secretly uncomfortable, and she did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold steadiness with which Miss Mention felt it difficult to cope. Perhaps because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman thing. You will have no time for dolls in future, she said. You will have to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful. Sarah kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her and said not a word. Everything will be very different now, Miss Mention went on. I suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you. Yes, answered Sarah. My Papa is dead. He left me no money. I am quite poor.  It appears that you have no relations and no home and no one to take care of you. For a moment the thin pale little face twitched, but Sarah again said nothing. What are you staring at? demanded Miss Mention sharply.   I understand, answered Sarah in a low tone, and there was a sound as if she had gulped down something which rose in her throat. I understand. That doll, cried Miss Mention, pointing to the splendid birthday gift seated near, that ridiculous doll with all her nonsensical extravagant things, I actually paid the bill for her. Sarah turned her head toward the chair. The last doll, she said. The last doll. And her little mournful voice had an odd sound. The last doll indeed, said Miss Mention, and she is mine, not yours. Everything you own is mine. Please take it away from me, then, said Sarah. I do not want it. If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Mention might almost have had more patience with her.  Don't put on grand airs, she said. The time for that sort of thing is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your pony will be sent away. Your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your oldest and plainest clothes. Your extravagant ones are no longer suited to your station. You are like Becky. You must work for your living. To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's eyes. A shade of relief. Can I work? she said. If I can work, it will not matter so much. What can I do? You can do anything you are told, was the answer.  If you'll make yourself useful, I may let you stay here. You speak French well, and you can help with your younger children. May I? exclaimed Sarah. Oh, please let me. I know I can teach them. I like them, and they like me.  You will have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands and help in the kitchen as well as in the schoolroom. If you don't please me, you will be sent away. Remember that. Now go. Sarah stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul she was thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to leave the room. Stop! said Miss Minchin. Don't you intend to thank me? Sarah paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her breast. What for? she said. For my kindness to you! replied Miss Minchin. For my kindness in giving you a home. Sarah made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved up and down, and she spoke in a strange, unchildishly fierce way. You are not kind, she said. You are not kind, and it is not a home. And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Minchin could stop her, or do anything but stare after her with stony anger. She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath, and she held Emily tightly against her side. I wish she could talk, she said to herself, if she could speak, if she could speak. She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her cheek upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think and think and think. But just before she reached the landing, Miss Amelia came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood before it, looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt secretly ashamed of the things she had been ordered to do. You—you are not to go in there, she said. Not go in! exclaimed Sarah, and she fell back a pace. That is not your room now, Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little. Somehow, all at once, Sarah understood. She realized that this was the beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of. Where is my room? she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not shake. You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky. Sarah knew where it was, Becky had told her about it. She turned and mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow and covered with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away and leaving far behind her the world in which that other child, who no longer seemed herself, had lived. This child, in her short, tight old frock, climbing the stairs to the attic, was quite a different creature. When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a dreary little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked about her. Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places. There was a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed covered with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be used downstairs had been sent up.  Sarah went to it and sat down. She seldom cried. She did not cry now.  And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door—such a low, humble one—that she did not at first hear it, and indeed was not roused until the door was timidly pushed open, and a poor, tear-snared face appeared peeping round it.  Oh, miss! she said under her breath, my Ty, would you allow me just to come in? Sarah lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile, and somehow she could not. Suddenly, and it was all through the loving mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes, her face looked more like a child's, not so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and gave a little sob. Oh, Becky! she said.  You see how true it is. There's no difference now. I'm not a princess any more. Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hunted to her breast, kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain. Yes, miss, you are, she cried, and her words were all broken. Whatsever happens to you! Whatsever! You'd be a princess all the same, and nothing couldn't make you nothing different. In the Attic The first night she spent in her Attic was a thing Sarah never forgot. During its passing she lived through a wild, unchildlike woe of which she never spoke to anyone about her. There was no one who would have understood. It was indeed well for her that as she lay awake in the darkness, her mind was forcibly distracted now and then by the strangeness of her surroundings. It was perhaps well for her that she was reminded by her small body of material things. If this had not been so, the anguish of her young mind might have been too great for a child to bear. But really, while the night was passing, she scarcely knew that she had a body at all, or remembered any other thing than one. My papa is dead, she kept whispering to herself, my papa is dead. It was not until long afterward that she realized that her bed had been so hard that she turned over and over in it to find a place to rest, that the darkness seemed more intense than any she had ever known, and that the wind howled over the roof among the chimneys like something which wailed aloud. Then there was something worse. This was certain scufflings and scratchings and squeakings in the walls behind the skirting-boards. She knew what they meant because Becky had described them. They meant rats and mice who were either fighting with each other or playing together. Once or twice she even heard sharp-toed feet scurrying across the floor, and she remembered in those after-days when she recalled things, that when first she heard them she started up in bed and sat trembling, and when she lay down again covered her head with the bed-clothes. The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made all at once. She must begin as she is to go on, Miss Minchin said to Miss Amelia. She must be taught at once what she is to expect. Mariette had left the house the next morning. The glimpse Sarah caught of her sitting-room as she passed its open door showed her that everything had been changed. Her ornaments and luxuries had been removed, and a bed had been placed in a corner to transform it into a new pupil's bedroom. When she went down to breakfast, she saw that her seat at Miss Minchin's side was occupied by Levinia, and Miss Minchin spoke to her coldly. You will begin your new duty, Sarah, she said, by taking your seat with the younger children at a smaller table. You must keep them quiet and see that they behave well and do not waste their food. You ought to have been down earlier. Lottie has already upset her tea. That was the beginning. And from day to day the duties given to her were added to. She told the younger children French and heard their other lessons, and these were the least of her labours. It was found that she could be made use of in numberless directions. She could be sent on errands at any time and in all weathers. She could be told to do things other people neglected. The cook and the housemaids took their tone from Miss Minchin, and rather enjoyed ordering about the young one who had been made so much fuss over for so long. They were not servants of the best class, and had neither good manners nor good tempers, and it was frequently convenient to have at hand someone on whom blame could be laid. During the first month or two, Sarah thought that her willingness to do things as well as she could, and her silence under reproof, might soften those who drove her so hard. In her proud little heart she wanted them to see that she was trying to earn her living and not accepting charity. But the time came when she saw that no one was softened at all, and the more willing she was to do as she was told, the more domineering and exacting careless housemaids became, and the more ready a scolding cook was to blame her. If she had been older, Miss Minchin would have given her the bigger girls to teach and saved money by dismissing an instructress. But while she remained and looked like a child, she could be made more useful as a sort of little superior errand girl and made of all work. An ordinary errand boy would not have been so clever and reliable. Sarah could be trusted with difficult commissions and complicated messages. She could even go and pay bills, and she combined with this the ability to dust a room well and to set things in order. Her own lessons became things of the past. She was taught nothing, and only after long and busy days spent in running here and there at everybody's orders, was she grudgingly allowed to go into the deserted schoolroom with a pile of old books and study alone at night. If I do not remind myself of the things I have learned, perhaps I may forget them, she said to herself. I am almost a scullerymaid, and if I am a scullerymaid who knows nothing, I shall be like poor Becky. I wonder if I could quite forget and begin to drop my ages and not remember that Henry the Eight had six wives. One of the most curious things in her new existence was her changed position among the pupils. Instead of being a sort of small royal personage among them, she no longer seemed to be one of their number at all. She was kept so constantly at work that she scarcely ever had an opportunity of speaking to any of them, and she could not avoid seeing that Miss Minchin preferred that she should live a life apart from that of the occupants of the schoolroom. I will not have her forming intimacies in talking to the other children, that lady said. Girls like a grievance, and if she begins to tell romantic stories about herself, she will become an ill-used heroine, and parents will be given a wrong impression. It is better that she should live a separate life, one suited to her circumstances. I am giving her a home, and that is more than she has any right to expect from me. Sarah did not expect much, and was far too proud to try to continue to be intimate with girls who, evidently, felt rather awkward and uncertain about her. The fact was that Miss Minchin's pupils were a set of dull matter-of-fact young people. They were accustomed to being rich and comfortable, and as Sarah's frocks grew shorter and shabbier and queerer looking, and it became an established fact that she wore shoes with holes in them, and was sent out to buy groceries and carry them through the streets in a basket on her arm, when the cook wanted them in a hurry. They felt rather as if, when they spoke to her, they were addressing an underservant. To think that she was the girl with the diamond minds, N'Venya commented, she does look an object. And she's queerer than ever. I never liked her much, but I can't bear that way she has now of looking at people without speaking, just as if she was finding them out. I am, said Sarah promptly, when she heard of this. That's what I look at some people for. I like to know about them. I think them over afterward. The truth was that she had saved herself annoyance several times by keeping her eye on N'Venya, who was quite ready to make mischief, and would have been rather pleased to have made it for the ex-show pupil. Sarah never made any mischief herself or interfered with anyone. She worked like a drudge. She tramped through the wet streets, carrying parcels and baskets. She laboured with the childish inattention of the little one's French lessons. As she became shabbier and more forlorn-looking, she was told that she had better take her meals downstairs. She was treated as if she was nobody's concern, and her heart grew proud and sore, but she never told anyone what she felt. Soldiers don't complain, she would say between her small, shut teeth. I am not going to do it. I will pretend this is part of a war. But there were hours when her child-heart might almost have broken with loneliness, but for three peopl