 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. She was such a little girl, that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. 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. "'You will go to a nice house where there will be a lot of little girls, and he will play together, and I will send you plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem scarcely a year before you are big enough and clever enough to come back and take care of Papa.'" 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. "'Because you are such fun when you say them,' he answered, laughing still more. 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. She had large cold fishy eyes and a large cold fishy smile. 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 mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. 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. Still, she was very firm in her belief that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all elated by Miss Minchin's fluttery. 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. I am not in the least anxious about her education, Captain Crue said with his gay laugh as he held Sarah's hand and patted it. 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. And she wants grown-up books, great big fat ones, French and German as well as English, history and biography poets and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Take her ride her pony in a row, or go out and buy a new doll. 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. What a darling little creature! Yes, said Captain Crue, drawing Sarah close. She is a darling little creature. 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 had certainly a very intelligent expression in her eyes when Sarah took her in her arms. She was a large doll, but not too large to carry about easily. She had naturally curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle about her, and her eyes were a deep, clear, grey-blue, with soft, thick eyelashes, which were real eyelashes, and not mere painted lines. "'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. "'Hey, oh, little Sarah,' he said to himself, "'I don't believe you know how much your daddy will miss you.'" 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. I heard Miss Minchin say to Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous for a child. 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. Her eyes are such a queer colour. 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. But she had already begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small face in such perfect manners. 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? Remove your elbows, take your ribbon out of your mouth, sit up at once! 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 French lesson was a pathetic thing. 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. She had a fine, hot little temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face. 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. There are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza. 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. Let her sit down, said Sarah, and I will tell you. 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. She drew her breath in so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound, and then she shut her lips and held them tightly closed as if she was determined either to do or not to do something. 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 put her head down quietly on her little huddled-up knees and sat very still for a few minutes. 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. Presently she lifted her face and shook back her black locks with a queer little smile. 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? You're clever and I'm the stupidest child in the school, but I—oh, I do so like you. 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 domineered over the little children and assumed grand heirs with those big enough to be her companions. 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. She never pushed them out of her way, or alluded to their years as humiliation and a blot upon their small characters. 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. Her young mother had died, and as the child had been treated like a favourite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling little creature. 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. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Lottie howled tempestuously, haven't got any mama. She ought to be whipped, Miss Minchin proclaimed. You shall be whipped, you naughty child! 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? If you can, you are a clever child, answered Miss Minchin, drawing in her mouth sharply. 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! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you, I will! 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. Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie's fat little legs kicked as hard as ever. 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. We will play that you are my little girl, and Emily shall be your sister. Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves. Shall she?" she said. Yes, answered Sarah, jumping to her feet. Let us go and tell her, and then I will wash your face and brush your hair. 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. In her own special and pet easy chair before the bright fire, Becky, with a coal smudge on her nose and several on her apron, with her poor little cap hanging half off her head, and an empty coal box on the floor near her, sat fast asleep, tired out beyond even the endurance of her hard-working young body. 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. She looked only like an ugly, stunted, worn-out little scullery drudge. 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. I'm only little girl like you. It's just an accident that I'm not you and you're not me. 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. If your bedrooms are finished, perhaps you might stay a tiny while. I thought, perhaps, you might like a piece of cake. 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. She had an extra piece of cake in her pocket, and she had been fed and warmed, not only by cake and fire. 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. Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and having first irritated Lavinia and Jesse by making a noise, had ended by falling down and hurting her fat knee. 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, you crybaby! 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 felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. 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. You would, wouldn't you, little missus? One of his many jokes had been to caller his little missus, because she had such an old-fashioned air. 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. You darling Becky, you made it all yourself. 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. Oh, Becky, she cried out with a queer little laugh. 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. Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you, she announced. 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. And, of course, it was disrespectful to hate grown-up people. 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. She has an opera glass in her hand, a blue and gold one. 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. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into decorum and then, with Sarah at her side, heading it, she led it away, leaving the last doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her wardrobe scattered about her, dresses and coats hung upon chair-backs, piles of lace-friiled petticoats lying upon their seats. 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. Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in her life. 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. Do you mean to tell me, she cried out, that he left nothing, that Sarah will have no fortune, that the child is a beggar, that she is left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress? 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. I was always so sure of his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous fantastic wardrobe. 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. A black frock? 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. Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put the black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has done with finery. Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry. 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. How dare you, she cried out! How dare you! 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. Poor little Miss Sarah, Mum, that was called a princess. 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. As she had not found a piece of black ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled loosely about her face and contrasted strongly with its pallor. 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. You are a beggar, said Miss Mention, her temper rising at the recollection of what all this meant. 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. Are you so stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are quite alone in the world and have no one to do anything for you unless I choose to keep you here out of charity. 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. She was a woman who liked to domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sarah's pale little steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if her might was being set at naught. 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. You are a sharp child, and pick up things readily. 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. Don't talk nonsense about people liking you, said Miss Minchin. 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. Under the skylight in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky, there stood an old battered red footstool. Sarah went to it and sat down. She seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across her knees and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there, her little black head resting on the black draperies, not saying one word, not making one sound. 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. It was Becky's face, and Becky had been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes with her kitchen apron, until she looked strange indeed. 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. I told you we were just the same—only two little girls, just two little girls. 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 people. The first, it must be owned, was Becky. Just Becky. Throughout all that first night spent in the garret, she had felt a vague comfort in knowing that on the other side of the wall in which the rats scoffed and squeaked, there was another young human creature, and during the nights that followed, the sense of comfort grew. They had little chance to speak to each other during the day. Each had her own tasks to perform, and any attempt at conversation would have been regarded as a tendency to loiter and lose time. Don't mind me, miss, whispered Becky during the first morning, if I don't say nothing polite. Someone would be down on us if I did. I means please and thank you and beg pardon, but I doesn't take time to say it. But before daybreak, she used to slip into Sarah's attic and button her dress and give her such help as she required before she went downstairs to light the kitchen fire. And when night came, Sarah always heard the humble knock at her door, which meant that her handmaid was ready to help her again if she was needed. During the first weeks of her grief, Sarah felt as if she were too stupefied to talk, so it happened that some time passed before they saw each other much or exchanged visits. Becky's heart told her that it was best that people in trouble should be left alone. The second of the trio of comforters was Ermengard, but odd things happened before Ermengard found her place. When Sarah's mind seemed to awaken again to the life about her, she realized that she had forgotten that an Ermengard lived in the world. The two had always been friends, but Sarah had felt as if she were years the older. It could not be contested that Ermengard was as dull as she was affectionate. She clung to Sarah in a simple, helpless way. She brought her lessons to her that she might be helped. She listened to her every word and besieged her with requests for stories, but she had nothing interesting to say herself, and she loathed books of every description. She was, in fact, not a person one would remember when one was caught in the storm of a great trouble, and Sarah forgot her. It had been all the easier to forget her, because she had been suddenly called home for a few weeks. When she came back, she did not see Sarah for a day or two, and when she met her for the first time, she encountered her coming down a corridor with her arms full of garments which were to be taken downstairs to be mended. Sarah herself had already been taught to mend them. She looked pale and unlike herself, and she was attired in the queer, outgrown frock whose shortness showed so much thin black leg. Ermengard was too slow a girl to be equal to such a situation. She could not think of anything to say. She knew what had happened, but somehow she had never imagined Sarah could look like this, so odd and poor, and almost like a servant. It made her quite miserable, and she could do nothing but break into a short hysterical laugh and exclaim aimlessly and as if without any meaning. Oh! Sarah! Is that you? Yes, answered Sarah, and suddenly a strange thought passed through her mind and made her face flush. She held the pile of garments in her arms, and her chin rested upon the top of it to keep it steady. Something in the look of her straight, gazing eyes made Ermengard lose her wits still more. She felt as if Sarah had changed into a new kind of girl, and she had never known her before. Perhaps it was because she had suddenly grown poor and had to mend things and work like Becky. Oh! she stammered. How are you? I don't know, Sarah replied. How are you? I'm—I'm quite well, said Ermengard, overwhelmed with shyness. Then, spasmodically, she thought of something to say which seemed more intimate. Are you—are you very unhappy? She said in a rush. Then Sarah was guilty of an injustice. Just at that moment her torn heart swelled within her, and she felt that if anyone was as stupid as that one had better get away from her. What do you think, she said? Do you think I'm very happy? And she marched past her without another word. In course of time she realized that if her wretchedness had not made her forget things, she would have known that poor, dull Ermengard was not to be blamed for her unready, awkward ways. She was always awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid she was given to being. But the sudden thought which had flashed upon her had made her oversensitive. She is like the others, she had thought. She does not really want to talk to me. She knows no one does. So for several weeks a barrier stood between them. When they met by chance Sarah looked the other way, and Ermengard felt too stiff and embarrassed to speak. Sometimes they nodded to each other in passing, but there were times when they did not even exchange a greeting. If she would rather not talk to me, Sarah thought, I will keep out of her way. Miss Minchin makes that easy enough. Miss Minchin made it so easy that at last they scarcely saw each other at all. At that time it was noticed that Ermengard was more stupid than ever, and that she looked listless and unhappy. She used to sit in the window-seat, huddled in a heap, and stare out of the window without speaking. Once Jesse, who was passing, stopped to look at her curiously. What are you crying for, Ermengard? she asked. I am not crying, answered Ermengard in a muffled, unsteady voice. You are, said Jesse, a great big tear just rolled down the bridge of your nose and dropped off at the end of it, and there goes another. Well, said Ermengard, I am miserable, and no one needed to fear, and she turned her plump back and took out her handkerchief and boldly hid her face in it. That night, when Sarah went to her attic, she was later than usual. She had been kept at work until after the hour at which the pupils went to bed, and after that she had gone to her lessons in the lonely schoolroom. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was surprised to see a glimmer of light coming from under the attic door. Nobody goes there but myself, she thought quickly, but someone has lighted a candle. Someone had indeed lighted a candle, and it was not burning in the kitchen candlestick she was expected to use, but in one of those belonging to the pupils' bedrooms. The someone was sitting upon the battered footstool, and was dressed in her nightgown and wrapped up in a red shawl. It was Ermengard. Ermengard! cried Sarah. She was so startled that she was almost frightened. You will get into trouble. Ermengard stumbled up from her footstool. She shuffled across the attic in her bedroom slippers, which were too large for her. Her eyes and nose were pink with crying. I know I shall, if I'm found out," she said, but I don't care. I don't care a bit. Oh, Sarah, please tell me. What is the matter? Why don't you like me any more?" Something in her voice made the familiar lump rise in Sarah's throat. It was so affectionate and simple, so like the old Ermengard who had asked to be best friends. It sounded as if she had not meant what she had seemed to mean during these past weeks. I do like you," Sarah answered. I thought, you see, everything is different now. I thought you were different. Ermengard opened her wet eyes wide. Why, it was you who were different, she cried. You didn't want to talk to me. I didn't know what to do. It was you who were different after I came back. Sarah thought a moment. She saw she had made a mistake. I am different, she explained, though not in the way you think. Miss Minchin does not want me to talk to the girls. Most of them don't want to talk to me. I thought, perhaps, you didn't, so I tried to keep out of your way. Oh, Sarah! Ermengard almost wailed in her reproachful dismay. And then, after one more look, they rushed into each other's arms. It must be confessed that Sarah's small black head lay for some minutes on the shoulder covered by the red shawl. When Ermengard had seemed to desert her, she had felt horribly lonely. Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sarah clasping her knees with her arms, and Ermengard rolled up in her shawl. Ermengard looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly. I couldn't bear it any more, she said. I daresay you could live without me, Sarah, but I couldn't live without you. I was nearly dead. So, to-night, when I was crying under the bed-clothes, I thought all at once of creeping up here and just begging you to let us be friends again. You're nicer than I am, said Sarah. I was too proud to try and make friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am not a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps, wrinkling her forehead wisely, that is what they were sent for. I don't see any good in them, said Ermengard stoutly. Neither do I, to speak the truth, admitted Sarah frankly. But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don't see it. There might, doubtfully, be good in Miss Minchin. Ermengard looked round the attic with a rather fearsome curiosity. Sarah, she said, do you think you can bear living here? Sarah looked round also. If I pretend it's quite different, I can, she answered. Or if I pretend it is a place and a story. She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for her. It had not worked for her at all since her troubles had come upon her. She had felt as if it had been stunned. Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of Monte Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'Eve, and think of the people in the Bastille. Bastille! half whispered Ermengard, watching her in beginning to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French Revolution, which Sarah had been able to fix in her mind by her dramatic relation of them. No one but Sarah could have done it. A well-known glow came into Sarah's eyes. Yes, she said, hugging her knees. That will be a good place to pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been here for years and years and years, and everybody has forgotten about me. Miss Mention is the jailer. And Becky, a sudden light adding itself to the glow in her eyes, Becky is the prisoner in the next cell. She turned to Ermengard, looking quite like the old Sarah. I shall pretend that, she said, and it will be a great comfort. Ermengard was at once enraptured and awed. And will you tell me all about it? She said, may I creep up here at night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have made up in the day? It will seem as if we were more best friends than ever. Yes," answered Sarah, nodding. Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Red for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 9 Melchizedek The third person in the trio was Lottie. She was a small thing and did not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by the alteration she saw in her young adopted mother. She had heard it rumoured that strange things had happened to Sarah, but she could not understand why she looked different, why she wore an old black frock and came into the schoolroom only to teach, instead of to sit in her place of honour and learn lessons herself. There had been much whispering among the little ones when it had been discovered that Sarah no longer lived in the rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state. Lottie's chief difficulty was that Sarah said so little when one asked her questions. At seven, mysteries must be made very clear if one is to understand them. Are you very poor now, Sarah? She had asked confidentially the first morning her friend took charge of the small French class. Are you as poor as a beggar? She thrust a fat hand into the slim one and opened round, tearful eyes. I don't want you to be as poor as a beggar. She looked as if she was going to cry, and Sarah hurriedly consoled her. Beggars have nowhere to live, she said courageously. I have a place to live in. Where do you live? persisted Lottie. The new girl sleeps in your room, and it isn't pretty any more. I live in another room, said Sarah. Is it a nice one? inquired Lottie. I want to go and see it. You must not talk, said Sarah. Miss Minchin is looking at us. She will be angry with me for letting you whisper. She had found out already that she was to be held accountable for everything which was objected to. If the children were not attentive, if they talked, if they were restless, it was she who would be reproved. But Lottie was a determined little person. If Sarah would not tell her where she lived, she would find out in some other way. She talked to her small companions and hung about the elder girls and listened when they were gossiping, and acting upon certain information they had unconsciously let drop, she started late one afternoon on a voyage of discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of until she reached the attic floor. There she found two doors near each other, and opening one she saw her beloved Sarah standing upon an old table and looking out of a window. Sarah! she cried aghast. Mama Sarah! She was aghast because the attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world. Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs. Sarah turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to be aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and any one chance to hear they were both lost. She jumped down from her table and ran to the child. Don't cry and make a noise, she implored. I shall be scolded if you do, and I have been scolded all day. It's—it's not such a bad room, Lottie. Isn't it? gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit her lip. She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted parent to make an effort to control herself for her sake. Then, somehow, it was quite possible that any place in which Sarah lived might turn out to be nice. Why isn't it Sarah? she almost whispered. Sarah hugged her close and tried to laugh. There was a sort of comfort in the warmth of the plump childish body. She had had a hard day and had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes. You can see all sorts of things that you can't see downstairs, she said. What sort of things? demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sarah could always awake in even in the bigger girls. Chimneys quite close to us, with smoke curling up in wreaths and clouds and going up into the sky, and sparrows hopping about and talking to each other, just as if they were people, and the other attic windows where heads may pop out any minute, and you can wonder who they belonged to. And it all feels as high up as if it was another world. Oh, let me see it! cried Lottie, lift me up. Sarah lifted her up and they stood on the old table together and leaned on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked out. Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different world they saw. The slate spread out on either side of them, and slanted down into the rain-gutter pipes. The sparrows being at home here twitted and hopped about quite without fear. Two of them perched on the chimney-top nearest and quarreled with each other fiercely, until one pecked the other and drove him away. The garret window next to theirs was shut, because the house next door was empty. I wish someone lived there, Sarah said. It is so close that if there was a little girl in the attic, we could talk to each other through the windows and climb over to see each other, if we were not afraid of falling. The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among the chimney-pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost unreal. One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia in the schoolroom, and the role of wheels in the square seemed a sound belonging to another existence. Oh, Sarah! cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. I like this attic. I like it. It's nicer than downstairs. Look at that sparrow, whispered Sarah. I wish I had some crumbs to throw to him. I have some! came in a little shriek from Lottie. I have part of a bun in my pocket. I bought it with my penny yesterday, and I saved a bit. When they threw out a few crumbs, the sparrow jumped and flew away to an adjacent chimney-top. He was evidently not accustomed to intimates in attics, and unexpected crumbs startled him. But when Lottie remained quite still, and Sarah chirped very softly, almost as if she were a sparrow herself, he saw that the thing which had alarmed him represented hospitality after all. He put his head on one side, and from his perch on the chimney, looked down at the crumbs with twinkling eyes. Lottie could scarcely keep still. Will he come? Will he come? she whispered. His eyes look as if he would. Sarah whispered back. He is thinking and thinking whether he dare. Yes, he will. Yes, he's coming. He flew down and hopped toward the crumbs, but stopped a few inches away from them, putting his head on one side again as if reflecting on the chances that Sarah and Lottie might turn out to be big cats and jump on him. At last his heart told him they were really nicer than they looked, and he hopped nearer and nearer, darted at the biggest crumb with a lightning peg, seized it, and carried it away to the other side of his chimney. Now he knows, said Sarah, and he will come back for the others. He did come back, and even brought a friend, and the friend went away and brought a relative, and among them they made a hearty meal over which they twittered and chatted and exclaimed, stopping every now and then to put their heads on one side and examine Lottie and Sarah. Lottie was so delighted that she quite forgot her first shocked impression of the attic. In fact, when she was lifted down from the table and returned to earthly things as it were, Sarah was able to point out to her many beauties in the room which she herself would not have suspected the existence of. It is so little and so high above everything, she said, that it is almost like a nest in a tree. The flaunting ceiling is so funny. See, you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room, and when the morning begins to come, I can lie in bed and look right up into the sky through that flat window in the roof. It is like a square patch of light. If the sun is going to shine, little pink clouds float about, and I feel as if I could touch them. And if it rains, the drops patter and patter as if they were saying something nice. Then if there are stars, you can lie and try to count how many go into the patch. It takes such a lot. And just look at that tiny, rusty grate in the corner. If it was polished and there was a fire in it, just think how nice it would be. You see, it's really a beautiful little room. She was walking around the small place, holding Lottie's hand and making gestures, which described all the beauties she was making herself see. She quite made Lottie see them too. Lottie could always believe in the things Sarah made pictures of. You see, she said, there could be a thick, soft blue Indian rug on the floor, and in that corner there could be a soft little sofa with cushions to curl up on, and just over it could be a shelf full of books so that one could reach them easily, and there could be a fur rug before the fire and hangings on the wall to cover up the whitewash and pictures. They would have to be little ones, but they could be beautiful, and there could be a lamp with a deep rose-colored shade and a table in the middle with things to have tea with, and a little fat copper kettle singing on the hob, and the bed could be quite different. It could be made soft and covered with a lovely silk coverlet. It could be beautiful. And perhaps we could coax the sparrows until we made such friends with them that they could come and peck at the window and ask to be let in. Oh, Sarah! cried Lottie, I should like to live here. When Sarah had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and after setting her on her way, had come back into her attic, she stood in the middle of it and looked about her. The enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie had died away. The bed was hard and covered with its dingy quilt. The whitewashed wall showed its broken patches, the floor was cold and bare, the grate was broken and rusty, and the battered footstool tilted sideways on its injured leg, the only seat in the room. She sat down on it for a few minutes and let her head drop in her hands. The mere fact that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a little worse, just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more desolate after visitors come and go, leaving them behind. It's a lonely place, she said. Sometimes it's the loneliest place in the world. She was sitting in this way when her attention was attracted by a slight sound near her. She lifted her head to see where it came from, and if she had been a nervous child, she would have left her seat on the battered footstool in a great hurry. A large rat was sitting up on his hind quarters and sniffing the air in an interested manner. Some of Lottie's crumbs had dropped upon the floor, and their scent had drawn him out of his hole. He looked so queer and so like a gray-whisker dwarf or gnome that Sarah was rather fascinated. He looked at her with his bright eyes as if he were asking a question. He was evidently so doubtful that one of the child's queer thoughts came into her mind. I daresay it's rather hard to be a rat, she mused. Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out, Oh, a horrid rat! I shouldn't like people to scream and jump and say, Oh, a horrid Sarah! the moment they saw me, and set traps for me and pretend they were dinner. It's so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said, Wouldn't you rather be a sparrow? She had sat so quietly that the rat had begun to take courage. He was very much afraid of her. But perhaps he had a heart like the sparrow, and it told him that she was not a thing which pounced. He was very hungry. He had a wife and a large family in the wall, and they had had frightfully bad luck for several days. He had left the children crying bitterly, and felt he would risk a good deal for a few crumbs. So he cautiously dropped upon his feet. Come on, said Sarah. I'm not a trap. You can have them, poor thing. Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats. Suppose I make friends with you. How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words, and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything, and it can always speak without even making a sound to another soul. But whatsoever the reason, the rat knew from that moment that he was safe, even though he was a rat. He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises, or throw heavy objects at him, which, if they did not fall and crush him, would send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a very nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air with his bright eyes fixed on Sarah, he had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating him as an enemy. When the mysterious thing which speaks without saying any words told him that she would not, he went softly toward the crumbs and began to eat them. As he did it, he glanced every now and then at Sarah, just as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very apologetic that it touched her heart. She sat and watched him without making any movement. One crumb was very much larger than the others. In fact, it could scarcely be called a crumb. It was evident that he wanted that piece very much, but it lay quite near the footstool, and he was still rather timid. I believe he wanted to carry to his family in the wall, Sarah thought. If I do not stir at all, perhaps he will come and get it. She scarcely allowed herself to breathe she was so deeply interested. The rat shuffled a little nearer, and ate a few more crumbs. Then he stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side glance at the occupant of the footstool. Then he darted at the piece of bun with something very like the sudden bulness of the sparrow, and the instant he had possession of it, he fled back to the wall, slipped down a crack in the skirting board, and was gone. I knew he wanted it for his children, said Sarah. I do believe I could make friends with him. A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengard found it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the tips of her fingers, Sarah did not come to her for two or three minutes. There was indeed, such a silence in the room at first, that Ermengard wondered if she could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she heard her utter a low little laugh and speak coaxingly to someone. There, Ermengard heard her say, take it and go home, Melchizedek. Go home to your wife. Almost immediately, Sarah opened the door, and when she did so, she found Ermengard standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold. Who—who are you talking to, Sarah? she gasped out. Sarah drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and amused her. You must promise not to be frightened, not to scream the least bit, or I can't tell you, she answered. Ermengard felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to control herself. She looked all round the attic and saw no one, and yet Sarah had certainly been speaking to someone, she thought of ghosts. Is it something that will frighten me? she asked timorously. Some people are afraid of them, said Sarah. I was at first, but I am not now. Was it a ghost? quaked Ermengard. Oh! said Sarah, laughing. It was my rat. Ermengard made one bound and landed in the middle of the little dingy bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown in the red shawl. She did not scream, but she gasped with fright. Oh! oh! she cried under her breath. Oh, rat! oh, rat! I was afraid you would be frightened, said Sarah, but you needn't be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and comes out when I call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him? The truth was that as the days had gone on, and with the aid of scraps brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, and she had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming familiar with was a mere rat. At first Ermengard was too much alarm to do anything but huddle in a heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet. But the sight of Sarah's composed little countenance and the story of Melchizedek's first appearance began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward over the edge of the bed and watched Sarah go and kneel down by the hole in the skirting-board. He—he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he? she said. No, answered Sarah. He's as polite as we are. He's just like a person. Now watch. She began to make a low whistling sound, so low and coaxing that it could only have been heard in entire stillness. She did it several times and looked entirely absorbed in it. Ermengard thought she looked as if she were working a spell. And at last, evidently in response to it, a grey-whiskered, bright head peeped out of the hole. Sarah had some crumbs in her hand. She dropped them, and Melchizedek came quietly forth and ate them. A piece of larger size than the rest he took and carried it in the most business-like manner back to his home. You see, said Sarah, that is for his wife and children. He's very nice. He only eats the little bits. After he goes back I can always hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three kinds of squeaks. One kind is the children's, and one is Mrs. Melchizedek's, and one is Melchizedek's own. Ermengard began to laugh. Oh, Sarah, she said. You are queer, but you're nice. I know I am queer, admitted Sarah cheerfully, and I try to be nice. She rubbed her forehead with a little brown paw, and a puzzled, tender look came into her face. Papa always laughed at me, she said, but I liked it. He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up things. I can't help making up things. If I didn't, I don't believe I could live. She paused and glanced around the attic. I'm sure I couldn't live here. She added in a low voice. Ermengard was interested as she always was. When you talk about things, she said, they seem as if they grew real. You talk about Melchizedek as if he was a person. He is a person, said Sarah. He gets hungry and frightened just as we do, and he is married and has children. How do we know he doesn't think things just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. That was why I gave him a name. She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees. Besides, she said, he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite enough to support him. Is it the Bastille yet? asked Ermengard eagerly. Do you always pretend it is the Bastille? Nearly always, answered Sarah. Sometimes I try to pretend it is another kind of place, but the Bastille is generally easiest, particularly when it's cold. Just at that moment, Ermengard almost jumped off the bed, she was so startled by a sound she heard. It was like two distinct knots on the wall. What is that? she exclaimed. Sarah got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically. It is the prisoner in the next cell. Becky! cried Ermengard enraptured. Yes, said Sarah. Listen, the two knocks meant, prisoner, are you there? She knocked three times on the wall herself as if an answer. That means, yes, I am here, and all is well. Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall. That means, explained Sarah, then fellow sufferer, we will sleep in peace, good night. Ermengard quite beamed with delight. Oh, Sarah! she whispered joyfully. It is like a story. It is a story, said Sarah. Everything's a story. You are a story, I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story. And she sat down again and talked until Ermengard forgot that she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sarah that she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must still noiselessly downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 10 The Indian Gentleman But it was a perilous thing for Ermengard and Lottie to make pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when Sarah would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits were rare once, and Sarah lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier life when she was downstairs than she was in her attic. She had no one to talk to, and when she was sent out on errands and walked through the streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowd's hurrying past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the princess, Sarah, driving through the streets in her broam, or walking attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager little face and picturesque coats and hats had often caused people to look after her. A happy, beautifully cared-for little girl naturally attracts attention. Shabby, poorly dressed children are not rare enough and pretty enough to make people turn round and look at them and smile. No one looked at Sarah in these days, and no one seemed to see her as she hurried along the crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, and as she was dressed only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of her wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer indeed. All her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left for her use, she was expected to wear so long as she could put them on at all. Sometimes when she passed a shop window with a mirror in it, she almost laughed out right on catching a glimpse of herself, and sometimes her face went red and she bit her lip and turned away. In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were lighted up, she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse herself by imagining things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or about the tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of rooms before the shutters were closed. There were several families in the square in which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a way of her own. The one she liked best, she called the large family. She called it the large family, not because the members of it were big, for indeed most of them were little, but because there were so many of them. There were eight children in the large family, and a stout rosy mother, and a stout rosy father, and a stout rosy grandmother, and any number of servants. The eight children were always either being taken out to walk or to ride in perambulators by comfortable nurses, or they were going to drive with their mama, or they were flying to the door in the evening to meet their papa and kiss him and dance around him and drag off his overcoat and look in the pockets for packages, or they were crowding about the nursery windows and looking out and pushing each other and laughing. In fact, they were always doing something enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large family. Sarah was quite fond of them, and had given them names out of books—quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorences, when she did not call them the large family. The fact fair baby with the lace cap was Ethelberta Beecham Montmorency. The next baby was Violet Col. Mondley Montmorency. The little boy who could just stagger and who had such round legs was Sidney Cecil Vivian Montmorency, and then came Lillian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica Eustasia, and Claude Harold Hector. One evening a very funny thing happened, though perhaps in one sense it was not a funny thing at all. Several of the Montmorences were evidently going to a children's party, and just as Sarah was about to pass the door, they were crossing the pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them. Veronica Eustasia and Rosalind Gladys, in white laced frocks and lovely sashes, had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was following them. He was such a pretty fellow, and had such rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and such a darling little round head covered with curls, that Sarah forgot her basket and shabby cloak altogether. In fact, forgot everything, but that she wanted to look at him for a moment. So she paused and looked. It was Christmas time, and the large family had been hearing many stories about children who were poor, and had no mamas and pappas to fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime. Children who were, in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In the stories, kind people, sometimes little boys and girls with tender hearts, invariably saw the poor children, and gave them money or rich gifts, or took them home to beautiful dinners. Guy Clarence had been affected to tears that very afternoon by the reading of such a story, and he had burned with a desire to find such a poor child, and give her a certain sixpence he possessed, and thus provide for her for life. An entire sixpence, he was sure, would mean affluence for evermore. As he crossed the strip of red carpet laid across the pavement from the door to the carriage, he had this very sixpence in the pocket of his very short man-award trousers. And just as Rosalind Gladys got into the vehicle and jumped on the seat in order to feel the cushion spring under her, he saw Sarah standing on the wet pavement in her shabby frock and hat, with her old basket on her arms, looking at him hungrily. He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had, perhaps, had nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they looked so because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his home held, and his rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry wish to snatch him in her arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a thin face and thin legs, and a common basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand in his pocket, and found his sixpence, and walked up to her benignly. Here, poor little girl, he said, here is a sixpence, I will give it to you. Sarah started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly like the poor children she had seen in her better days, waiting on the pavement to watch her as she got out of her broam. And she had given them pennies many a time. Her face went red, and then it went pale, and for a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence. Oh no, she said, oh no, thank you, I mustn't take it indeed. Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice, and her manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person, that Veronica Eustacia, whose real name was Janet, and Rosalyn Gladys, who was really called Nora, leaned forward to listen. But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust the sixpence into her hand. Yes, you must take it, poor little girl, he insisted stoutly. You can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence. There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so likely to be heart-brokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that Sarah knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it must be admitted her cheeks burned. Thank you, she said. You are a kind, kind little darling thing. And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage, she went away trying to smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar. As the large family's carriage drove away, the children inside it were talking with interested excitement. Oh, Donald! This was Guy Clarence's name. Janet exclaimed alarmedly. Why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I am sure she is not a beggar. She didn't speak like a beggar, cried Nora, and her face didn't really look like a beggar's face. Besides, she didn't beg, said Janet. I was so afraid she might be angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for beggars when they are not beggars. She wasn't angry, said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm. She laughed a little, and said I was a kind, kind little darling thing, and I was—stoutly—it was my whole sixpence. Janet and Nora exchanged glances. A beggar girl would never have said that, decided Janet. She would have said, Thank you kindly, little gentleman. Thank you, sir, and perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy. Sarah knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the large family was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions concerning her were held round the fire. She is a kind of servant at the seminary, Janet said. I don't believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan, but she is not a beggar, however shabby she looks. And after that she was called by all of them the little girl who is not a beggar, which was, of course, rather a long name and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest one said it in a hurry. Sarah managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the large family increased, as indeed her affection for everything she could love increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of the attic window and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the crumbs she scattered. With Melchizedek she had become so intimate that he actually brought Mrs. Melchizedek with him sometimes, and now and then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and somehow he looked quite as if he understood. Bear had grown in her mind a rather strange feeling about Emily, who always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one of her moments of great desolateness. She would have liked to believe or pretend to believe that Emily understood and sympathized with her. She did not like to own to herself that her only companion could feel and hear nothing. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on the old red footstool, and stare and pretend about her until her own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like fear, particularly at night, when everything was so still, when the only sound in the attic was the occasional sudden scurry and squeak of Melchizedek's family in the wall. One of her pretends was that Emily was a kind of good witch who could protect her. Sometimes, after she had stared at her until she was wrought up to the highest pitch of fancifulness, she would ask her questions and find herself almost feeling as if she would presently answer. But she never did. As to answering, though, said Sarah, trying to console herself, I don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as to not say a word, just to look at them and think. Miss Minchin turns pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia looks frightened and so do the girls. When you will not fly into a passion, people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage except what makes you hold it in—that stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I am like myself. Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends even. She keeps it all in her heart. But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, she did not find it easy, when, after a long, hard day in which she had been sent here and there, sometimes on long errands through wind and cold and rain, she came in wet and hungry, and was sent out again because nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that her slim legs might be tired and her small body might be chilled. When she had been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks for thanks, when the cook had been vulgar and insolent, when Miss Minchin had been in her worst mood, and when she had seen the girl sneering among themselves at her shabbiness. Then she was not always able to comfort her sore, proud, desolate heart with fancies, when Emily merely sat upright in her old chair and stared. One of these nights, when she came up to the attic, cold and hungry, with the tempest raging in her young breast, Emily's stare seemed so vacant, her sore dust legs and arms so inexpressive, that Sarah lost all control over herself. There was nobody but Emily, no one in the world, and there she sat. I shall die presently, she said at first. Emily simply stared. I can't bear this, said the poor child, trembling. I know I shall die. I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand miles today and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until night. And because I could not find the last thing the cook sent me for, they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now, and they laughed. Do you hear? She looked at the staring, glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing. Sarah, who never cried. You're nothing but a doll, she cried. Nothing but a doll, doll, doll. You care for nothing. You're stuffed with sore dust. You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel you're a doll. Emily lay on the floor with her legs ignominiously doubled up over her head and a new flat place on the end of her nose. But she was calm, even dignified. Sarah hid her face and her arms. The rats in the war began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble. Melchizedek was chastising some of his family. Sarah's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the side of one angle and somehow, by this time, actually with a kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. Sarah bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile. You can't help being a doll, she said with a resigned sigh. Any more than Lavinia and Jesse can help not having any sense. We're not all made alike. Perhaps you do your sore dust best. And she kissed her and took her clothes straight and put her back upon her chair. She had wished very much that someone would take the empty house next door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open some day and a head in shoulders rising out of the square aperture. If it looked a nice head, she thought, I might begin by saying good morning and all sorts of things might happen. But, of course, it's not really likely that any one but underservants would sleep there. One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit to the grocers, the butchers, and the bakers, she saw to her great delight that during her rather prolonged absence a van full of furniture had stopped before the next house. The front doors were thrown open and men in shirtsleeves were going in and out carrying heavy packages and pieces of furniture. It's taken, she said. It really is taken. Oh, I do hope a nice head will look out of the attic window. She would almost have liked to join the group of loiterers which stopped on the pavement to watch the things carried in. She had an idea that if she could see some of the furniture she could guess something about the people it belonged to. Miss Minchin's tables and chairs are just like her, she thought. I remember thinking that the first minute I saw her, even though I was so little. I told Papa afterward and he laughed and said it was true. I'm sure the large family had fat, comfortable armchairs and sofas and I can see that their red flowery wallpaper is exactly like them. It's warm and cheerful and kind-looking and happy. She was sent out for parsley to the Green Gross as later in the day and when she came up the area steps her heart gave quite a quick beat of recognition. Several pieces of furniture had been set out of a van upon the pavement. There was a beautiful table of elaborately wrought teakwood and some chairs and a screen covered with rich oriental embroidery. The sight of them gave her a weird homesick feeling. She had seen things so like them in India. One of the things Miss Minchin had taken from her was a carved teakwood desk her father had sent her. They're beautiful things, she said. They look as if they ought to belong to a nice person. All the things look rather grand. I suppose it is a rich family. The vans of furniture came and were unloaded and gave place to others all the day. Several times it so happened that Sarah had an opportunity of seeing things carried in. It became plain that she had been right in guessing that the newcomers were people of large means. All the furniture was rich and beautiful and a great deal of it was oriental. Wonderful rugs and draperies and ornaments were taken from the vans, many pictures and books enough for a library. Among other things was the superb God Buddha in a splendid shrine. Someone in the family must have been in India, Sarah thought. They've got used to Indian things and like them. I am glad. I shall feel as if they were friends, even if her head never looks out of the attic window. When she was taking in the evening's milk for the cook, there was really no odd job she was not called upon to do. She saw something occur which made the situation more interesting than ever. The handsome, rosy man who was the father of a large family, walked across the square in the most matter-of-fact manner, and ran up the stairs of the next door house. He ran up them as if he felt quite at home and expected to run up and down them many a time in the future. He stayed inside quite a long time, and several times came out and gave directions to the workmen as if he had a right to do so. It was quite certain that he was in some intimate way connected with the newcomers and was acting for them. If the new people have children, Sarah speculated, the large family will be sure to come and play with them, and they might come up into the attic just for fun. At night, after her work was done, Becky came in to see her fellow prisoner and bring her news. It's an Indian gentleman that's coming to live next door, miss, she said. I don't know whether he's a black gentleman or not, but he's an Indian one. He's very rich, and he's ill, and the gentleman of the large family's lawyer. He's had a lot of trouble, and it's made him ill and low in his mind. He worships idols, miss. He's an even and bows down to wooden stone. I've seen an idol being carried in for him to worship. Somebody had ought to send him a track. You can get a track for a penny. Sarah laughed a little. I don't believe he worships that idol, she said. Some people like to keep them to look at because they're interesting. My papa had a beautiful one, and he did not worship it. But Becky was rather inclined to prefer to believe that the new neighbor was an even. It sounded so much more romantic than that he should merely be the ordinary kind of gentleman who went to church with a prayer-book. She sat and talked long that night of what he would be like, of what his wife would be like if he had one, and of what his children would be like if they had children. Sarah saw that privately she could not help hoping very much that they would all be black and would wear turbans, and above all that, like their parent, they would all be evens. I'll never live next door to know evens, miss," she said. I should like to see what sort of ways they'd have. It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he was shattered in health and unhappy in mind. A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When the footman dismounted from the box and opened the door, the gentleman who was the father of the large family got out first. After him there descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the steps to men's servants. They came to assist their master, who, when he was helped out of the carriage, proved to be a man with a haggard, distressed face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs. He was carried up the steps, and the head of the large family went with him, looking very anxious. Shortly afterward a doctor's carriage arrived, and the doctor went in, plainly to take care of him. There is such a yellow gentleman next door, Sarah. Lottie whispered at the French class afterward. Do you think he's a Chinese? The geography says the Chinese men are yellow. No, he's not Chinese, Sarah whispered back. He's very ill. Go on with your exercise, Lottie. No, monsieur, je n'ai pas le gainif de mon oncle. That was the beginning of the story of the Indian gentleman. There were fine sunsets even in the square sometimes. One could only see parts of them, however, between the chimneys and over the roofs. From the kitchen windows one could not see them at all, and could only guess that they were going on, because the bricks looked warm in the air rosy or yellow for a while, or perhaps one saw a blazing glow strike a particular pane of glass somewhere. There was, however, one place from which one could see all the slender of them. The piles of red or gold clouds in the west, or the purple ones edged with dazzling brightness, or the little fleecy floating ones tinged with rose color, and looking like flights of pink doves scurrying across the blue in a great hurry if there was a wind. The place where one could see all this, and seem at the same time to breathe a purer air, was, of course, the attic window. When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and railings, Sarah knew something was going on in the sky, and when it was at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs, and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a long breath and looked all around her. It used to seem as if she had all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of the other attics. Generally the skylights were closed, but even if they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them. And there Sarah would stand, sometimes turning her face upward to the blue which seemed so friendly and near, just like a lovely vaulted ceiling, sometimes watching the west and all the wonderful things that happened there, the clouds melting or drifting or waiting softly to be changed pink or crimson or snow-white or purple or pale dove gray. Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep turquoise blue or liquid amber or chrysoprace green. Sometimes dark headlands jutted into strange lost seas. Sometimes slender strips of wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together. There were places where it seemed that one could run or climb or stand and wait to see what was coming next, until, perhaps as it all melted, one could float away. At least it seemed so to Sarah, and nothing had ever been quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the table, her body half out of the skylight, the sparrows twittering with sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to twitter with a sort of subdued softness, just when these marvels were going on. There was such a sunset as this, a few days after the Indian gentleman was brought to his new home, and as it fortunately happened that the afternoon's work was done in the kitchen, and nobody had ordered her to go anywhere or perform any task, Sarah found it easier than usual to slip away and go upstairs. She mounted her table and stood looking out. It was a wonderful moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west, as if a glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light filled the air. The birds flying across the tops of the houses showed quite black against it. It's a splendid one, said Sarah, softly to herself. It makes me feel almost afraid, as if something strange was just going to happen. Splendid ones always make me feel like that. She suddenly turned her head, because she heard a sound a few yards away from her. It was an odd sound, like a queer little squeaky chattering. It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging from the skylight, but it was not the head or body of a little girl or a housemate. It was the picturesque, white-swayed form and dark-faced, gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-servant. Alaska, Sarah said to herself quickly, and the sound she had heard came from a small monkey he held in his arms, as if he were fond of it, and which was snuggling and chattering against his breast. As Sarah looked toward him, he looked toward her. The first thing she thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt absolutely sure that he had come up to look at the sun, because he had seen it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at him interestingly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may be. Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered, and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. The friendly look in Sarah's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull. It was, perhaps, in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure, and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He suddenly broke loose, jumped onto the slates, ran across them chattering, and actually leapt onto Sarah's shoulder, and from there down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her, but she knew he must be restored to his master—if Thalaska was his master—and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was fond of him. She turned to Thalaska, feeling glad that she remembered still some of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he knew. Will he let me catch him? she asked. She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind little voice came from heaven itself. At once Sarah saw that he had been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of respectful thanks. He was the servant of Mississaib. The monkey was a good monkey, and would not bite, but unfortunately he was difficult to catch. He would flee from one spot to another like the lightning. He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Dass knew him as if he were his child, and Ram Dass he would sometimes obey, but not always. If Mississaib would permit Ram Dass, he himself could cross the road to her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal. But he was evidently afraid Sarah might think he was taking a great liberty, and perhaps would not let him come. But Sarah gave him leave at once. Can you get across? she inquired. In a moment, he answered her. Then come, she said, he is flying from side to side of the room as if he was frightened. Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. Then he turned to Sarah and salamed again. The monkey saw him and uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. It was not a very long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the mere fun of it, but presently he sprang chattering onto Ram Dass's shoulder, and sat there chattering and clinging to his neck with a weird little skinny arm. Ram Dass thanked Sarah profoundly. She had seen that his quick, native eyes had taken in at a glance all the bare shabbiness of the room, but he spoke to her as if he was speaking to the little daughter of Raja and pretended that he observed nothing. He did not presume to remain more than a few moments after he had caught the monkey, and those moments were given to further deep and grateful obeisance to her in return for her indulgence. This little evil one, he said, stroking the monkey, was in truth not so evil as he seemed, and his master, who was ill, was sometimes amused by him. He would have been made sad if his favourite had run away and been lost. Then he salamed once more, and got through the skylight and crossed the slates again with as much agility as the monkey himself had displayed. When he had gone, Sarah stood in the middle of her attic and thought of many things his face and his manner had brought back to her. The sight of his native costume and the profound reverence of his manner stirred all her past memories. It seemed a strange thing to remember that she, the drudge whom the cook had said insulting things to an hour ago, had only a few years ago been surrounded by people who all treated her as Ram Dass had treated her, who salamed when she went by, whose foreheads almost touched the ground when she spoke to them, who were her servants and her slaves. It was like a sort of dream. It was all over, and it could never come back. It certainly seemed that there was no way in which any change could take place. She knew what Miss Minchin intended that her future should be. So long as she was too young to be used as a regular teacher, she would be used as an errand girl and servant, and yet expected to remember what she had learned, and in some mysterious way, to learn more. The greater number of her evenings she was supposed to spend at study, and at various indefinite intervals she was examined, and knew that she would have been severely admonished if she had not advanced as was expected of her. The truth, indeed, was that Miss Minchin knew that she was too anxious to learn to require teachers. Give her books, and she would devour them and end by knowing them by heart. She might be trusted to be equal to teaching a good deal in the course of a few years. This was what would happen. When she was older she would be expected to drudge in the school room as she drudged now in various parts of the house. They would be obliged to give her more respectable clothes, but they would be sure to be plain and ugly and to make her look somehow like a servant. That was all there seemed to be to look forward to, and Sarah stood quite still for several minutes and thought it over. Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek, and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little body and lifted her head. Whatever comes, she said, cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison, and her throne was gone, and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her the Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then, than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off. This was not a new thought, but quite an old one by this time. It had consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not understand, and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and acid things said to her, or if she heard them, she did not care for them at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sarah was saying to herself, You don't know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing, and don't know any better. This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else, and queer and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it, and it was a good thing for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. A princess must be polite, she said to herself. And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. She's got more heirs and graces than if she'd come from Bucknam Palace that young on, said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never forgets her manners. If you please cook, will you be so kind, cook? I beg your pardon, cook, may I trouble you, cook? She'd drop some about the kitchen as if there was nothing. The morning after the interview with Ram Dass and his monkey, Sarah was in the schoolroom with her small pupils. Having finished giving them their lessons, she was putting the French exercise books together, and thinking as she did it, of the various things royal personages in disguise were called upon to do. Alfred the Great, for instance, burning the cakes and getting his ears boxed by the wife of the need-herd, how frightened she must have been when she found out what she had done. If Miss Minchin should find out that she, Sarah, whose toes were almost sticking out of her boots, was a princess, a real one. The look in her eyes was exactly the look which Miss Minchin most disliked. She would not have it. She was quite near her, and was so enraged that she actually flew at her and boxed her ears exactly as the need-herd's wife had boxed King Alfred's. It made Sarah start. She wakened from her dream at the shock, and catching her breath stood still a second. Then, not knowing she was going to do it, she broke into a little laugh. What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child? Miss Minchin exclaimed. It took Sarah a few seconds to control herself sufficiently to remember that she was a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting from the blows she had received. I was thinking, she answered. Beg my pardon immediately, said Miss Minchin. Sarah hesitated a second before she replied. I will beg your pardon for laughing if it was rude, she said then. But I won't beg your pardon for thinking. What were you thinking? demanded Miss Minchin. How dare you think! What were you thinking? Jesse tittered, and she and Lavinia nudged each other in unison. All the girls looked up from their books to listen. Really, it always interested them a little when Miss Minchin attacked Sarah. Sarah always said something queer, and never seemed the least bit frightened. She was not in the least frightened now, though her boxed ears were scarlet and her eyes were as bright as stars. I was thinking, she answered grandly and politely, that you did not know what you were doing. That I did not know what I was doing, Miss Minchin fairly gasped. Yes, said Sarah, and I was thinking what would happen if I were a princess and you boxed my ears. What I should do to you. And I was thinking that if I were one, you would never dare to do it, whatever I said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would be if you suddenly found out. She had the imagined future so clearly before her eyes that she spoke in a manner which had an effect even upon Miss Minchin. It almost seemed for the moment to her narrow unimaginative mind that there must be some real power hidden behind this candid daring. What, she exclaimed, found out what. That I really was a princess, said Sarah, and could do anything, anything I liked. Every pair of eyes in the room widened to its full limit. LaVinya leaned forward on her seat to look. Go to your room, cried Miss Minchin breathlessly. This instant, leave the schoolroom, attend to your lessons, young ladies. Sarah made a little bow. Excuse me for laughing if it was impolite, she said, and walked out of the room, leaving Miss Minchin struggling with her rage and the girls whispering over their books. Did you see her? Did you see how queer she looked? Jesse broke out. I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be something. Suppose she should. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 12 The Other Side of the Wall When one lives in a row of houses, it is interesting to think of the things which are being done and said on the other side of the wall of the very rooms one is living in. Sarah was fond of amusing herself by trying to imagine the things hidden by the wall which divided the select seminary from the Indian Gentleman's house. She knew that the schoolroom was next to the Indian Gentleman's study, and she hoped that the wall was thick, so that the noise made sometimes after less than hours would not disturb him. I'm grown quite fond of him, she said to Ermengard. I should not like him to be disturbed. I have adopted him for a friend. You can do that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them, and think about them, and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like relations. I'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call twice a day. I have very few relations, said Ermengard reflectively, and I'm very glad of it. I don't like those I have. My two aunts are always saying, Dear me, Ermengard, you are very fat, you shouldn't eat sweets, and my uncle is always asking me things like, When did Edward III ascend the throne, and who died of a surfeit of lampries? Sarah laughed. People you never speak to can't ask you questions like that, she said, and I'm sure the Indian Gentleman wouldn't, even if he was quite intimate with you. I am fond of him. She had grown fond of the large family because they looked happy, but she had become fond of the Indian Gentleman because he looked unhappy. He had evidently not fully recovered from some very severe illness. In the kitchen where, of course, the servants, through some mysterious means, knew everything, there was much discussion of his case. He was not an Indian Gentleman really, but an Englishman who had lived in India. He had met with great misfortunes which had for a time so imperiled his whole fortune that he had thought himself ruined and disgraced forever. The shock had been so great that he had almost died of brain fever, and ever since he had been shattered in health, though his fortunes had changed and all his possessions had been restored to him. His trouble and peril had been connected with mines. And mines with diamonds in them, said the cook. No savings of mine never goes into no mines, particularly diamond ones, with a side glance at Sarah. We all know something of them. He felt as my papa felt, Sarah thought. He was ill as my papa was, but he did not die. So her heart was more drawn to him than before. When she was sent out at night she used sometimes to feel quite glad, because there was always a chance that the curtains of the house next door might not yet be closed, and she could look into the warm room and see her adopted friend. When no one was about she used sometimes to stop and holding into the iron railings wish him good night as if he could hear her. Perhaps you can feel, if you can't hear, was her fancy. Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don't know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again. I am so sorry for you, she would whisper in an intense little voice. I wish you had a little missus who could pet you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be your little missus myself, poor dear. Good night. Good night. God bless you. She would go away feeling quite comforted, and a little warmer herself. Her sympathy was so strong that it seemed as if it must reach him somehow as he sat alone in his armchair by the fire, nearly always in a great dressing-gown and nearly always with his forehead resting in his hand as he gazed hopelessly into the fire. He looked to Sarah like a man who had a trouble on his mind still, not merely like one whose troubles lay all in the past. He always seems as if he were thinking of something that hurts him now, she said to herself, but he has got his money back and he will get over his brain fever in time, so he ought not to look like that. I wonder if there is something else. If there was something else—something even servants did not hear of—she could not help believing that the father of the large family knew it. The gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency. Mr. Montmorency went to see him often, and Mrs. Montmorency and all the little Montmorences went to, though less often. He seemed particularly fond of the two elder little girls—the Janet and Nora who had been so alarmed when their small brother Donald had given Sarah his sixpence. He had, in fact, a very tender place in his heart for all children, and particularly for little girls. Janet and Nora were as fond of him as he was of them, and looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the afternoons when they were allowed to cross the square and make their well-behaved little visits to him. They were extremely decorous little visits, because he was an invalid. He is a poor thing, said Janet, and he says we cheer him up. We try to cheer him up very quietly. Janet was the head of the family, and kept the rest of it in order. It was she who decided, when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to tell stories about India, and it was she who said when he was tired, and it was time to steal quietly away and tell Ram Dass to go to him. They were very fond of Ram Dass. He could have told any number of stories if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani. The Indian gentleman's real name was Mr. Karisford, and Janet told Mr. Karisford about the encounter with the little girl who was not a beggar. He was very much interested, and all the more so when he heard from Ram Dass of the adventure of the monkey on the roof. Ram Dass made for him a very clear picture of the attic and its desolateness of the bare floor and broken plaster, the rusty empty grate, and the hard, narrow bed. Carmichael, he said to the father of a large family, after he had heard this description, I wonder how many of the attics in this square are like that one, and how many wretched little servant girls sleep on such beds while I toss on my down pillows loaded and harassed by wealth that is, most of it, not mine. My dear fellow, Mr. Carmichael answered cheerily, the sooner you cease tormenting yourself the better it will be for you. If you possessed all the wealth of all the indies, you could not set right all the discomforts in the world, and if you began to refurnish all the attics in this square there would still remain all the attics in all the other squares and streets to put in order, and there you are. Mr. Karisford sat and bit his nails as he looked into the glowing bed of coals in the grate. Do you suppose, he said slowly after a pause, do you think it is possible that the other child, the child I never cease thinking of, I believe, could possibly be reduced to any such condition as the poor little soul next door? Mr. Carmichael looked at him uneasily. He knew that the worst thing the man could do for himself, for his reason and his health, was to begin to think in that particular way of this particular subject. If the child of Madame Pascal's school in Paris was the one you are in search of, he answered soothingly, she would seem to be in the hands of people who can afford to take care of her. They adopted her because she had been the favourite companion of their little daughter who died. They had no other children, and Madame Pascal said that they were extremely well-to-do Russians. And the wretched woman actually did not know where they had taken her, exclaimed Mr. Karisford. Mr. Carmichael shrugged his shoulders. She was a shrewd, worldly French woman, and was evidently only too glad to get the child so comfortably off her hands when the father's death left her totally unprovided for. Women of her type do not trouble themselves about the futures of children who might prove burdens. The adopted parents apparently disappeared and left no trace. But you say IF the child was the one I am in search of. You say IF. We are not sure. There was a difference in the name. Madame Pascal pronounced it as if it were caroo instead of crew. But that might be merely a matter of pronunciation. The circumstances were curiously similar. An English officer in India had placed his motherless little girl at the school. He had died suddenly after losing his fortune. Mr. Carmichael paused a moment as if a new thought had occurred to him. Are you sure the child was left at a school in Paris? Are you sure it was Paris? My dear fellow broke forth Karisford with restless bitterness. I am sure of nothing. I never saw either the child or her mother. Ralph Crue and I loved each other as boys. But we had not met since our school days until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent promise of the minds. He became absorbed too. The whole thing was so huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we scarcely spoke of anything else. I only know that the child had been sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember now how I knew it. He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when his still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the past. Mr. Carmichael watched him anxiously. It was necessary to ask some questions, but they must be put quietly and with caution. But you had reason to think the school was in Paris? Yes, was the answer, because her mother was a French woman, and I had heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed only likely that she would be there. Yes, Mr. Carmichael said. It seems more than probable. The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, wasted hand. Carmichael, he said, I must find her. If she is alive she is somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless it is through my fault. How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our most fantastic dreams, and poor crew's child may be begging in the street. No, no, said Carmichael, try to be calm. Consol yourself with the fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her. Why was I not man enough to stand to my ground when things looked black? Charisphant groaned in petulant misery. I believe I should have stood my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as well as my own. Poor crew had put into the scheme every penny that he owned. He trusted me, he loved me, and he died thinking I had ruined him. I, Tom Charisford, who played cricket at Eden with him. What a villain he must have thought me. Don't reproach yourself so bitterly. I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail. I reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler in a thief because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined him and his child. The good-hearted father of the large family put his hand on his shoulder comforting me. You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of mental torture, he said. You were half delirious already. If you had not been you would have stayed and fought it out. You were in a hospital strapped down in bed, raving with brain fever two days after you left the place. Remember that. Charisford dropped his forehead in his hands. Good God! Yes, he said. I was driven mad with dread and horror. I had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house all the air seemed full of hideous things mocking and mouthing at me. That is explanation enough in itself, said Mr. Carmichael. How could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely? Charisford shook his drooping head. And when I returned to consciousness poor crew was dead and buried. And I seemed to remember nothing. I did not remember the child for months and months. Even when I began to recall her existence everything seemed in a sort of haze. He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead. It sometimes seems so now when I try to remember. Surely I must some time have heard crew speak of the school she was sent to. Don't you think so? He might not have spoken of it definitely. You never even seem to have heard her real name. He used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented. He called her his little Mrs. The wretched minds drove everything else out of our heads. We talked of nothing else. If he spoke of the school I forgot. I forgot. And now I shall never remember. Come, come, said Carmichael. We shall find her yet. We will continue to search for Madame Pascal's good-natured Russians. She seemed to have a vague idea that they lived in Moscow. We will take that as a clue. I will go to Moscow. If I were able to travel I would go with you, said Charisford. But I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire. And when I look into it I seem to see crew's gay young face gazing back at me. He looks as if he were asking me a question. Sometimes I dream of him at night and he always stands before me and asks the same question in words. Can you guess what he says, Carmichael? Mr. Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice. Not exactly, he said. He says, Tom, old man. Tom, where is the little missus? He caught at Carmichael's hand and plung to it. I must be able to answer him. I must, he said, help me to find her. Help me. On the other side of the wall Sarah was sitting in her garret talking to Melchizedek who had come out for his evening meal. It has been hard to be a princess today, Melchizedek, she said. It has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the weather grows colder and the streets get more sloppy. When Lavinia laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall I thought of something to say all in a flash and I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back at people like that if you're a princess. But you have to bite your tongue to hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, Melchizedek, and it's a cold night. Quite suddenly she put her black head down in her arms as she often did when she was alone. Oh, Papa, she whispered. What a long time it seems since I was your little missus. This was what happened that day on both sides of the wall. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 13 One of the Populus The winter was a wretched one. There were days on which Sarah tramped through snow when she went on her errands. There were worse days when the snow melted and combined itself with mud to form slush. There were others when the fog was so thick that the lamps in the street were lighted all day, and London looked as it had looked the afternoon, several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thoroughfares with Sarah tucked up on its seat, leaning against her father's shoulder. On such days the windows of the house of the large family always looked delightfully cosy and alluring, and the study in which the Indian gentlemen sat glowed with warmth and rich colour, but the attic was dismal beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look at, and scarcely ever any stars it seemed to Sarah. The clouds hung low over the skylight, and were either grey or mud-colour, or dropping heavy rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to her attic for anything, Sarah was obliged to light a candle. The women in the kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered than ever. Becky was driven like a little slave. "'Twalt for you, miss,' she said hoarsely to Sarah one night, when she had crept into the attic. "'Twalt for you, and the bass seal, and being the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does seem real now, doesn't it? The Mrs is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can just see them big keys, you says she carries. The cook, she's like one of them under jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss. Tell me about the subterranean passage we've dug under the walls.' "'I'll tell you something warmer,' shivered Sarah. Get your coverlet and wrap it around you, and I'll get mine, and we will huddle close together on the bed, and I'll tell you about the tropical forest where the Indian gentleman's monkey used to live. When I see him sitting on the table near the window and looking out into the street with that mournful expression, I always feel sure that he is thinking about the tropical forest where he used to swing by his tail from coconut trees. I wonder who caught him, and if he left a family behind who had depended on him for coconuts.' "'That is warmer, miss,' said Becky gratefully, but some ways even the bass seal is sort of heaten when you get to telling about it.' "'That is because it makes you think of something else,' said Sarah, wrapping the coverlet round her, until only her small, dark face was to be seen looking out of it. I've noticed this. What you have to do with your mind when your body is miserable is to make it think of something else.' "'Can you do it, miss?' faulted Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes. Sarah knitted her brows a moment. "'Sometimes I can. And sometimes I can't,' she said stoutly. "'But when I can, I'm all right. And what I believe is that we always could, if we practiced enough. I've been practicing a good deal lately, and it's beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are horrible, just horrible, I think as hard as ever I can of being a princess. I say to myself, I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable. You don't know how that makes you forget,' with a laugh. She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else, and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she was a princess. But one of the strongest tests she was ever put to came on a certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, would never quite fade out of her memory, even in the years to come. For several days it had rained continuously. The streets were chilly and sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist. There was mud everywhere, sticky London mud, and over everything the pool of drizzle and fog. Of course there were several long and tiresome errands to be done. There always were on days like this, and Sarah was sent out again and again until her shabby clothes were damp through. The absurd old feathers on her forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd than ever, and her downtrodden shoes were so wet that they could not hold any more water. Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner because Miss Minchin had chosen to punish her. She was so cold and hungry and tired that her face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some kind-hearted person passing her in the street glanced at her with sudden sympathy. But she did not know that. She hurried on, trying to make her mind think of something else. It was really very necessary. Her way of doing it was to pretend and suppose with all the strength that was left in her. But really this time it was harder than she had ever found it, and once or twice she thought it almost made her more cold and hungry instead of less so. But she persevered obstinately, and as the muddy water squelched through her broken shoes, and the wind seemed to be trying to drag her thin jacket from her, she talked to herself as she walked, though she did not speak aloud or even move her lips. Suppose I had dry clothes on, she thought. Suppose I had good shoes and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And suppose—suppose—just when I was near a bakers, where they sold hot buns, I should find sixpence, which belonged to nobody. Suppose if I did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns and eat them all without stopping. Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes. It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sarah. She had to cross the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud was dreadful—she almost had to wade. She picked her way as carefully as she could, but she could not save herself much. Only in picking her way she had to look down at her feet in the mud, and in looking down, just as she reached the pavement, she saw something shining in the gutter. It was actually a piece of silver—a tiny piece trodden upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough left to shine a little. Not quite a sixpence, but the next thing to it—a four-penny piece. In one second it was in her cold little red and blue hand. Oh! she gasped. It's true! It is true! And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the shop directly facing her. And it was a baker's shop, and a cheerful, stout, motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into the window a tray of delicious, newly baked buns, fresh from the oven, large, plump, shiny buns with currants in them. It almost made Sarah feel faint for a few seconds, the shock and the sight of the buns, and the delightful odours of warm bread floating up through the baker's cellar window. She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money. It had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was completely lost in the stream of passing people who crowded and jostled each other all day long. But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything, she said to herself rather faintly. So she crossed the pavement and put her wet foot on the step. As she did so, she saw something that made her stop. It was a little figure more for lawn even than herself—a little figure which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red, muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner was trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared a shock head of tangled hair and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry eyes. Sarah knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a sudden sympathy. This, she said to herself with a little sigh, is one of the populace, and she is hungrier than I am. The child, this one of the populace, stared up at Sarah and shuffled herself a little aside so as to give her room to pass. She was used to being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman chance to see her, he would tell her to move on. Sarah clutched her little four-penny-piece and hesitated for a few seconds. Then she spoke to her. Are you hungry? she asked. The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more. Ain't I just—she said in a hoarse voice—just ain't I. Haven't you had any dinner? said Sarah. No dinner, more hoarsely still and with more shuffling, nor yet no breakfast, nor yet no supper, no nothing. Since when? asked Sarah. So no. Never got nothing to-day, nowhere, have axed and axed. Just to look at her made Sarah more hungry and faint, but those queer little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to herself, though she was sick at heart. If I'm a princess, she was saying. If I'm a princess, when they were poor and driven from their thrones, they always shared with the populace. If they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves, they always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it had been sixpence, I could have eaten six. It won't be enough for either of us, but it will be better than nothing. Wait a minute, she said to the beggar child. She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously. The woman was just going to put some more hot buns into the window. If you please, said Sarah, have you lost four pence, a silver four pence? And she held the full-lawn little piece of money out to her. The woman looked at it, and then at her, at her intense little face, and draggled one's fine clothes. Less us now, she answered. Did you find it? Yes, said Sarah, in the gutter. Keep it then, said the woman. It may have been there for a week, and goodness knows who lost it. You could never find out. I know that, said Sarah. But I thought I would ask you. Not many would, said the woman, looking puzzled and interested in good nature all at once. Do you want to buy something? she added. As she saw Sarah glanced at the buns. Four buns, if you please, said Sarah. Those are to penny each. The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. Sarah noticed that she put in six. I said four, if you please, she explained. I have only four buns. I'll throw in two for make-wait, said the woman, with her good-natured look. I dare say you can eat them some time. Aren't you hungry? A mist rose before Sarah's eyes. Yes, she answered. I'm very hungry, and I am much obliged to you for your kindness, and—she was going to add—there is a child outside who is hungrier than I am. But just at that moment, two or three customers came in at once, and each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank the woman again and go out. The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step. She looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring straight before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sarah saw her suddenly draw the back of a roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from under her lids. She was muttering to herself. Sarah opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had already warmed her own cold hands a little. See, she said, putting the bun in the ragged lamp. This is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry. The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good luck almost frightened her. Then she snatched up the bun and began to cram it into her mouth with great, wolfish bites. Oh, my! Oh, my! Sarah heard her say hoarsely and wild delight. Oh, my! Sarah took out three more buns and put them down. The sound in the horse-ravenous voice was awful. She is hungrier than I am, she said to herself. She's starving. But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. I'm not starving, she said, and she put down the fifth. The little ravening London savage was still snatching and devouring when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if she had ever been taught politeness, which she had not. She was only a poor little wild animal. Goodbye, said Sarah. When she reached the other side of the street, she looked back. The child had a bun in each hand, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to watch her. Sarah gave her a little nod, and the child, after another stare, a curious, lingering stare, jerked her shaggy head in response. And until Sarah was out of sight, she did not take another bite, or even finish the one she had begun. At that moment, the baker woman looked out of her shop window. Well, I never, she exclaimed, if that young'un hasn't given her buns to a beggar child. It wasn't because she didn't want them, either. Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to know what she did it for. She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the beggar child. Who gave you those buns? she asked her. The child nodded her head towards Sarah's vanishing figure. What did she say? inquired the woman. Asked me if I was hungry? replied the horse voice. What did you say? said I was just. And then she came in and got the buns and gave them to you, did she? The child nodded. How many? five? The woman thought it over, left just one for herself, she said in a low voice, and she could have eaten the whole six. I saw it in her eyes. She looked after the little, draggled, faraway figure and felt more disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a day. I wish she hadn't gone so quick, she said. I'm blessed if she shouldn't have had a dozen. Then she turned to the child. Are you hungry yet? she said. I'm all is hungry, was the answer, but taint as bad as it was. Come in here, said the woman, and she held open the shop door. The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited into a warm place full of bread seemed an incredible thing. She did not know what was going to happen. She did not care even. Get yourself warm, said the woman, pointing to a fire in the tiny back room, and look here. When you are hard up for a bit of bread, you can come in here and ask for it, and blessed if I won't give it to you for that young one's sake. Sarah found some comfort in her remaining bun. At all events it was very hot, and it was better than nothing. As she walked along, she broke off small pieces and ate them slowly to make them last longer. Suppose it was a magic bun, she said, and a bite was as much as a whole dinner. I should be overeating myself if I went on like this. It was dark when she reached the square where the select seminary was situated. The lights in the houses were all lighted. The blinds were not yet drawn in the windows of the room, where she nearly always caught glimpses of members of the large family. Frequently at this hour she could see the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency, sitting in a big chair with a small swarm round him, talking, laughing, perching on the arms of his seat or on his knees or leaning against them. This evening the swarm was about him, but he was not seated. On the contrary, there was a good deal of excitement going on. It was evident that a journey was to be taken, and it was Mr. Montmorency who was to take it. A broam stood before the door, and the big portmanteau had been strapped upon it. The children were dancing about, chattering and hanging on to their father. The pretty rosy mother was standing near him, talking as if she was asking final questions. Sarah paused a moment to see the little ones lifted up and kissed, and the bigger ones bent over and kissed also. I wondered if he will stay away long, she thought. The portmanteau was rather big. Oh, dear, how they will miss him. I shall miss him myself, even though he doesn't know I am alive. When the door opened she moved away, remembering the sixpence, but she saw the traveller come out and stand against the background of the warmly lighted hall, the older children still hovering about him. Will Moscow be covered with snow? said the little girl, Janet. Will there be ice everywhere? Shall you drive in a drosky, quite another? Shall you see the Tsar? I will write and tell you all about it, he answered, laughing, and I will send you pictures of muzhiks and things. Run into the house. It is a hideous damp night. I would rather stay with you than go to Moscow. Good night. Good night, duckies. God bless you. And he ran down the steps and jumped into the broam. If you find the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence, jumping up and down on the door-mat. Then they went in and shut the door. Did you see, said Janet and Nora, as they went back to the room, the little girl who was not a beggar was passing? She looked all cold and wet, and I saw her turn her head over her shoulder and look at us. Mama says her clothes always look as if they had been given her by someone who was quite rich, someone who only let her have them because they were too shabby to wear. The people at the school always send her out on errands on the horridest days and nights there are. Sarah crossed the square to Miss Mention's area steps, feeling faint and shaky. I wonder who the little girl is, she thought, the little girl he is going to look for. And she went down the area steps, lugging her basket, and finding it very heavy indeed, as the father of a large family drove quickly on his way to the station to take the train which was to carry him to Moscow, where he was to make his best efforts to search for the lost little daughter of Captain Crew. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 14 What Melchizedek Heard and Saw On this very afternoon while Sarah was out, a strange thing happened in the attic. Only Melchizedek saw and heard it, and he was so much alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there, and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with great caution to watch what was going on. The attic had been very still all the day after Sarah had left it in the early morning. The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchizedek had, in fact, found it rather dull, and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect silence rained, he decided to come out and reconnoitre, though experience taught him that Sarah would not return for some time. He had been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He stopped to listen with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that something was moving on the roof. It was approaching the skylight. It reached the skylight. The skylight was being mysteriously opened. A dark face peered into the attic, then another appeared behind it, and both looked in with signs of caution and interest. Two men were outside on the roof, and were making silent preparations to enter through the skylight itself. One was Ram Dass, and the other was a young man who was the Indian gentleman's secretary. But, of course, Melchizedek did not know this. He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy of the attic, and as the one with the dark face let himself down through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not make the slightest sound, Melchizedek turned tail and fled precipitately back to his hole. He was frightened to death. He had ceased to be timid with Sarah, and knew she would never throw anything but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low, coaxing whistle. But strange men were dangerous things to remain near. He lay close and flat near the entrance of his home, just managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much he understood of the talk he heard, I am not in the least able to say. But even if he had understood it all, he would probably have remained greatly mystified. The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as Ram Dass had done, and he caught a last glimpse of Melchizedek's vanishing tail. Is that a rat? he asked Ram Dass in a whisper. Yes, a rat, Sahib, answered Ram Dass also whispering. There are many in the walls. Ah! exclaimed the young man. It is a wonder the child is not terrified of them. Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully. He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sarah, though she had only spoken to him once. The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib, he answered. She is not as other children. I see her when she does not see me. I slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to her. The sparrows come at her call. The rat she has fed and tamed in her loneliness. The poor slave of the house comes to her for comfort. There is a little child who comes to her in secret. There is one older who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might. This I have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the house, who is an evil woman, she is treated like a pariah. But she has the bearing of a child who is of the blood of kings. You seem to know a great deal about her, the secretary said. All her life, each day I know, answered Ram Dass, her going out I know, and her coming in, her sadness and her poor joys, her coldness and her hunger. I know when she is alone until midnight, learning from her books. I know when her secret friends steal to her and she is happier, as children can be, even in the midst of poverty, because they come and she may laugh and talk with them in whispers. If she were ill I should know, and I would come and serve her if it might be done. You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that she will not return in surprises? She would be frightened if she found us here, and the Sa'ib Karrisford's plan would be spoiled. Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to it. None mount here but herself, Sa'ib, he said. She has gone out with her basket and may be gone for hours. If I stand here, I can hear any step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs. The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast pocket. Keep your ears open, he said. And he began to walk slowly and softly round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his tablet as he looked at things. First he went to the narrow bed. He pressed his hand upon the mattress and uttered an exclamation. As hard as stone, he said, that will have to be altered some day when she is out. A special journey can be made to bring it across. It cannot be done to-night. He lifted the covering and examined the one thin pillow. Covalet, dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and ragged, he said. What a bed for a child to sleep in, and in a house which calls itself respectable. There has not been a fire in that great for many a day, dancing at the rusty fireplace. Never since I have seen it, said Ram Dass. The mistress of the house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be cold. The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet. He looked up from it as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket. It is a strange way of doing the thing, he said. Who planned it? Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance. It is true that the first thought was mine, Sa'ib, he said, though it was not but a fancy. I am fond of this child. We are both lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends. Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew cheered and warm as she spoke. Then she came to this fancy, and the next day the Sa'ib, being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased Sa'ib. To hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested in her, and asked questions. At last he began to please himself with the thought of making her visions real things. You think that it can be Dalmashi's sleep? Supose she awakened, suggested the secretary, and it was evident that, whatsoever the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well as the Sa'ib carousels. I can move as if my feet were of velvet, rammed us replied, and children's sleep soundly, even the unhappy ones. I could have entered this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things through the window, I can do all, and she will not stir. When she awakens, she will think a magician has been here. He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the secretary smiled back at him. It will be like a story from the Arabian nights, he said. Only an Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London Fogs. They did not remain very long to the great relief of Melchizedek, who, as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace, the broken footstool, the old table, the walls, which last he touched with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that a number of old nails had been driven in various places. You can hand things on them, he said. Ram Dass smiled mysteriously. Yesterday, when she was out, he said, I entered, bringing with me small, sharp nails, which can be pressed into the wall without blows from a hammer. I placed many in the plaster where I may need them. They are ready. The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round him as he thrust his tablets back into his pocket. I think I have made notes enough. We can go now, he said. The Saeed Carasford has a warm heart. It is a thousand pitties that he has not found the lost child. If he should find her, his strength would be restored to him, said Ram Dass. His God may lead her to him yet. Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had entered it. And after he was quite sure they had gone, Melchizedek was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes felt it safe to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the hope that even such alarming human beings as these might have a chance to carry crumbs in their pockets and drop one or two of them. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Part 1 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 15 The Magic When Sarah had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass closing the shutters and caught her glimpse of this room also. It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside, was the thought which crossed her mind. There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian gentleman was sitting before it. His head was resting in his hand, and he looked as lonely and unhappy as ever. Oh, man! said Sarah. I wonder what you're supposing. And this was what he was supposing at that very moment. Suppose, he was thinking, suppose even if Carmichael traces the people to Moscow, the little girl they took from Madame Pascal's school in Paris is not the one we're in search of. Suppose she proves to be quite a different child. What steps shall I take next? When Sarah went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come downstairs to scold the cook. Where have you wasted your time? she demanded. You have been out for hours. It was so wet and muddy, Sarah answered. It was hard to walk because my shoes were so bad and slipped about. Make no excuses, said Miss Minchin, and tell no falsehoods. Sarah went into the cook. The cook had received a severe lecture and was in a fearful temper as a result. She was only too rejoiced to have someone to vent her rage on, and Sarah was a convenience as usual. Why didn't you stay out all night? she snapped. Sarah laid her purchases on the table. Here are the things, she said. The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage humour indeed. May I have something to eat? Sarah asked rather faintly. Tea's over and done with, was the answer. Did you expect me to keep it up for you? Sarah stood silent for a second. I had no dinner, she said next, and her voice was quite low. She made it low because she was afraid it would tremble. There's some bread in the pantry, said the cook. That's all you'll get at this time of day. Sarah went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too vicious a humour to give her anything to eat with it. It was always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sarah. Really, it was hard for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her attic. She often found them long and steep when she was tired, but to-night it seemed as if she would never reach the top. Several times she was obliged to stop to rest. When she reached the top landing she was glad to see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door. That meant that Ermengard had managed to creep up to pay her a visit. There was some comfort in that. It was better than to go into the room alone and find it empty and desolate. The mere presence of plump, comfortable Ermengard wrapped in her red shawl would warm it up a little. Yes. There Ermengard was when she opened the door. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely under her. She had never become intimate with Melchizedek and his family, though they rather fascinated her. When she found herself alone in the attic, she always preferred to sit on the bed until Sarah arrived. She had, in fact, on this occasion, had time to become rather nervous, because Melchizedek had appeared and sniffed about a good deal, and once had made her utter a repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs, and, while he looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction. Oh, Sarah! she cried out. I am glad you've come. Melchie would sniff about so. I tried to coax him to go back, but he wouldn't for such a long time. I like him, you know, but it does frighten me when he sniffs right at me. Do you think he ever would jump? No, answered Sarah. Ermengard crawled forward on the bed to look at her. You do look tired, Sarah, she said. You're quite pale. I am tired, said Sarah, dropping onto the lopsided footstool. Oh, there's Melchizedek, poor thing. He's come to ask for his supper. Melchizedek had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for her footstep. Sarah was quite sure he knew it. He came forward with an affectionate expectant expression, as Sarah put her hand in her pocket and turned it inside out, shaking her head. I'm very sorry, she said. I haven't one crumb left. Go home, Melchizedek, and tell your wife there was nothing in my pocket. I'm afraid I forgot because the cook and Miss Mincham were so cross. Melchizedek seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not contentedly, back to his home. I did not expect to see you to-night, Ernie, Sarah said. Ermengard hugged herself in the red shore. Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old out. She explained, no one else ever comes and looks into the bedrooms after we're in bed. I could stay here until morning if I wanted to. She pointed toward the table under the skylight. Sarah had not looked toward it as she came in. A number of books were piled upon it. Ermengard's gesture was a dejected one. Papa sent me some more books, Sarah, she said. There they are. Sarah looked round and got up at once. She ran to the table and picking up the top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For the moment she forgot her discomforts. Ah! she cried out. How beautiful! Carl Isle's French Revolution! I have so wanted to read that. I haven't, said Ermengard, and Papa will be so cross if I don't. He'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays. What shall I do? Sarah stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited flush on her cheeks. Look here! she cried. If you lend me these books, I'll read them, and tell you everything that's in them afterward, and I'll tell it so that you will remember it, too. Oh, goodness! exclaimed Ermengard. Do you think you can? I know I can, Sarah answered. The little ones always remember what I tell them. Sarah, said Ermengard, hope gleaming in her round face. If you'll do that and make me remember, I'll give you anything. I don't want you to give me anything, said Sarah. I want your books. I want them. And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved. Take them then, said Ermengard. I wish I wanted them, but I don't. I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be. Sarah was opening one book after the other. What are you going to tell your father, she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind. Oh, he needn't know, answered Ermengard. He'll think I've read them. Sarah put down her book and shook her head slowly. That's almost like telling lies, she said, and lies—well, you see, they're not only wicked, they're vulgar. Sometimes, reflectively, I thought perhaps I might do something wicked. I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill Miss Minchin, you know, when she was ill-treating me, but I couldn't be vulgar. Why can't you tell your father I've read them? He wants me to read them, said Ermengard, a little discouraged by this unexpected turn of affairs. He wants you to know what is in them, said Sarah, and if I can tell it to you in an easy way and make you remember it, I should think he would like that. You'll like it if I learn anything in any way, said Rufal Ermengard. You would if you were my father. It's not your fault that— again, Sarah, she pulled herself up and stopped rather suddenly. She had been going to say, it's not your fault that you are stupid. That what, Ermengard asked, that you can't learn things quickly, amended Sarah. If you can't, you can't. If I can, why, I can, that's all. She always felt very tender of Ermengard, and tried not to let her feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn anything at once and not being able to learn anything at all. As she looked at her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her. Perhaps, she said, to be able to learn things quickly as in everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she is now, she'd still be a testable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked. Look at Robespierre. She stopped and examined Ermengard's countenance, which was beginning to look bewildered. Don't you remember, she demanded. I told you about him not long ago. I believe you've forgotten. Well, I don't remember all of it, admitted Ermengard. Well, you wait a minute, said Sarah, and I'll take off my wet things and wrap myself in the coverlet, and I'll tell you over again. She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against the wall, and she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of slippers. Then she dumped on the bed and drawing the coverlet about her shoulders, sat with her arms round her knees. Now listen, she said. She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution and told such stories of it that Ermengard's eyes grew round with alarm, and she held her breath. But though she was rather terrified, there was a delightful thrill in listening, and she was not likely to forget Robespierre again, or to have any doubt about the Frances de Lambeau. You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it, Sarah explained, and she had beautiful floating blond hair, that when I think of her, I never see her head on her body, but always on a pike, with those furious people dancing and howling. It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had made, and for the present, the books were to be left in the attic. Now let's tell each other things, said Sarah. How are you getting on with your French lessons? Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you explained the conjugations. Miss Minching could not understand why I did my exercises so well that first morning. Sarah laughed a little and hugged her knees. She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her some so well, she said, but it is because she creeps up here too, and I help her. She glanced round the room. The attic would be rather nice, if it wasn't so dreadful, she said, laughing again. It's a good place to pretend in. The truth was that Ermengard did not know anything of the sometimes almost unbearable side of life in the attic, and she had not a sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare occasions that she could reach Sarah's room, she only saw the side of it which was made exciting by things which were pretended and stories which were told. Her visits partook of the character of adventures, and though sometimes Sarah looked rather pale, and it was not to be denied that she had grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not admit of complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was almost ravenous with hunger as she was to-night. She was growing rapidly, and her constant walking and running about would have given her a keen appetite even if she had had abundant and regular meals of a much more nourishing nature than the unappetizing inferior food snatched at such odd times as suited the kitchen convenience. She was growing used to a certain gnawing feeling in her young stomach. I suppose soldiers feel like this when they're on long and weary march, she often said to herself. She liked the sound of the phrase, long and weary march. It made her feel rather like a soldier. She had also a quaint sense of being a hostess in the attic. If I lived in a castle, she argued, and Ermengard was the lady of another castle and came to see me, with knights and squires and vassals riding with her, and pennons flying, when I heard the clarions sounding outside the drawbridge I should go down to receive her, and I should spread feasts in the banquet hall and call in minstrels to sing and play in relate romances. When she comes into the attic I can't spread feasts, but I can tell stories and not let her notice agreeable things. I dare say poor chattelains had to do that in time of famine when their lands had been pillaged. She was a proud, rave little chattelain, and dispensed generously the one hospitality she could offer, the dreams she dreamed, the visions she saw, the imaginings would for her joy and comfort. So as they sat together, Ermengard did not know that she was faint as well as ravenous, and that while she talked, she now and then wondered if our hunger would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as if she had never been quite so hungry before. I wish I was as thin as you, Sarah, Ermengard said suddenly. I believe you're thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look so big, and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your elbow. Sarah pulled down her sleeve which had pushed itself up. I always was a thin child, she said bravely, and I always had big green eyes. I love your queer eyes, said Ermengard, looking into them with affectionate admiration. They always look as if they saw such a long way. I love them, and I love them to be green, though they look black generally. Their cat's eyes, loved Sarah, but I can't see in the dark with them, because I've tried and I couldn't. I wish I could. It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight which neither of them saw. If either of them had chance to turn and look, she would have been startled by the sight of a dark face which peered cautiously into the room, and disappeared as quickly and almost as silently as it had appeared. Not quite as silently, however. Sarah, who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof. That didn't sound like Melchizedek, she said. It wasn't scratchy enough. What? said Ermengard, a little startled. Didn't you think you heard something? asked Sarah. No, Ermengard faltered. Did you? Perhaps I didn't, said Sarah. But I thought I did. It sounded as if something was on the slates, something that dragged softly. What could it be? said Ermengard. Could it be robbers? No, Sarah began cheerfully. There is nothing to steal. She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the sound that checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below, and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice. End of Chapter 15 Part 1 Chapter 15 Part 2 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 15 Continued Sarah sprang off the bed and put out the candle. She's scolding Becky, she whispered, as she stood in the darkness. She's making her cry. Will she come in here? Ermengard whispered back, panic-stricken. No, she will think I'm in bed. Don't stir. It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs. Sarah could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she was angry enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it sounded as if she was driving Becky before her. You impudent dishonest child, they heard her say. Cook tells me she has missed things repeatedly. Twat me, Mum, said Becky, sobbing. I was angry enough, but twat me, never. You deserve to be sent to prison, said Miss Minchin's voice, picking and stealing. Half a meat pie, indeed. Twat me, wept, Becky. I could have had a whole one, but I never laid a finger on it. Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. The meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became apparent that she boxed Becky's ears. Don't tell falsehoods, she said. Go to your room this instant. Both Sarah and Ermengard heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in her slip-shod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her door shut. I knew that she threw herself upon the bed. I could have at two of them. They heard her cry into a pillow, and I never took a bite. Twat's Cook, give it to a policeman. Sarah stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was clenching her little teeth, and opening and shutting fiercely her outstretched hands. She could scarcely stand still, but she dared not move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs, and all was still. The wicked, cruel thing, she burst forth. The cook takes things herself and then says Becky steals them. She doesn't. She doesn't. She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash barrel. She pressed her hands hard against her face and burst into passionate little sobs, and Ermengard, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed by it. Sarah was crying. The unconquerable Sarah. It seemed to denote something new, some mood she had never known. Suppose—Suppose? A new dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow little mind all at once. She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle. When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sarah, with her new thought growing to definite fear in her eyes. Sarah? She said in a timid, almost all-stricken voice. Uh—uh—you never told me. I don't want to be rude, but— Are you ever hungry? It was too much, just at that moment. The barrier broke down. Sarah lifted her face from her hands. Yes, she said, in a new, passionate way. Yes, I am. I'm so hungry now that I could almost eat you, and it makes it worse to hear poor Becky. She's hungrier than I am. Ermengard gasped. Oh! Oh! she cried woefully, and I never knew. I didn't want you to know, Sarah said. It would have made me feel like a street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar. No, you don't, you don't! Ermengard broke in. Your clothes are a little queer, but you couldn't look like a street beggar. You haven't a street beggar face. A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity, said Sarah, with a short little laugh in spite of herself. Here it is. And she pulled out the thin ribbon from her neck. He wouldn't have given me his Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I needed it. Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of them. It made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their eyes. Who was he? asked Ermengard, looking at it, quite as if it had not been a mere ordinary silver sixpence. He was a darling little thing going to a party, said Sarah. He was one of the large family, the little one with the round legs, the one I call Guy Clarence. I suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas presents and hampers full of capes and things, and he could see I had nothing. Ermengard gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had recalled something to have troubled mind and given her a sudden inspiration. Oh, Sarah! she cried. What a silly thing I am not to have thought of it! Of what? Something splendid! said Ermengard in an excited hurry. This very afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full of good things. I never touched it. I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so bothered about Papa's books. Her words began to tumble over each other. It's got cake in it and little meat pies and jam tarts and buns and oranges and red currant wine and figs and chocolate. I'll creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now. Sarah almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger, the mention of food has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengard's arm. Do you think you could? she ejaculated. I know I could, answered Ermengard, and she ran to the door, opened it softly, put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she went back to Sarah. The lights are out. Everybody's in bed. I can creep and creep, and no one were here. It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands, and a sudden light sprang into Sarah's eyes. Ermy, she said, let us pretend. Let us pretend it's a party, and oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell? Yes! Yes, let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't hear. Sarah went to the wall, through which she could hear poor Becky crying more softly. She knocked four times. That means, come to me through the secret passage under the wall, she explained, and I have something to communicate. Five quick knocks answered her. She's coming, she said. Almost immediately the door of the attic opened, and Becky appeared. Her eyes were red, and her cap was sliding off, and when she caught sight of Ermengard, she began to rub her face nervously with her apron. Don't mind me a bit, Becky, cried Ermengard. Miss Ermengard has asked you to come in, said Sarah, because she's going to bring a box of good things up here to us. Becky's cap almost fell off entirely. She broke in with such excitement. To eat, Miss, she said. Things that's good to eat? Yes, answered Sarah, and we are going to pretend a party. And you shall have as much as you want to eat, put in Ermengard. I'll go this minute. She was in such haste that as she tipped her out of the attic, she dropped her red shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one saw it for a minute or so. Becky was too much overpowered by the good luck which had befallen her. Oh, Miss! Oh, Miss! she gasped. I know it was you that asked her to let me come. It—it makes me cry to think of it. And she went to Sarah's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly. But in Sarah's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform her world for her. Here in the attic, with the cold night outside, with the afternoon and the sloppy streets barely past, with the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's eyes not yet faded, this simple, cheerful thing that happened like a thing of magic. She caught her breath. Somehow something always happens, she cried, just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the magic did it. If I could only just remember that always, the worst thing never quite comes. She gave Becky a little cheerful shake. No, no, you mustn't cry, she said. We must make hastens at the table. Said the table, Miss? Said Becky, gazing round the room. What we set it with? Sarah looked round the attic, too. It doesn't seem to be much, she answered half- laughingly. That moment she saw something impounced upon it. It was Ermingard's red shawl which lay upon the floor. Here's the shawl, she cried. I know she won't mind it. It will make such a nice red tablecloth. They pulled the old table forward and threw the shawl over it. Red is a wonderfully kind and comfortable cover. It began to make the room look furnished directly. How nice a red rug would look on the floor, exclaimed Sarah. We must pretend there is one. Her eyes swept the bareboards with a swift glance of admiration. The rug was laid down already. How soft and thick it is, she said with the little laugh which Becky knew the meaning of, and she raised and set her foot down again delicately, as if she felt something under it. Yes, Miss! answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She was always quite serious. What next now? said Sarah, and she stood still and put her hands over her eyes. Something will come if I think and wait a little. In a soft, expectant voice. The magic will tell me. One of her favourite fancies was that, on the outside, as she called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she would uncover an enlightened, laughing face. In a moment she did. There, she cried, it is come. I know now. I must look among the things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess. She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. Nothing had been left in it but rubbish, but she knew she should find something. The magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or another. In a corner lay a package so insignificant looking that it had been overlooked, and when she herself had found it, she had kept it as a relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs. She seized them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to arrange them upon the red table cover, patting and coaxing them into shape, with the narrow lace edge curling outward, her magic working its spells for her as she did it. These are the plates, she said. They are golden plates. These are the richly embroidered napkins. Nones worked them in Compens in Spain. Did they miss? breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the information. You must pretend it, said Sarah. If you pretend it enough, you will see them. Yes, miss, said Becky. And as Sarah returned to the trunk, she devoted herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired. Sarah turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very queer indeed. She had shut her eyes and was twisting her face in strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous weight. What is the matter, Becky? Sarah cried. What are you doing? Becky opened her eyes by the start. I was a pretending miss, she answered a little sheepishly. I was trying to see it like you do. I almost did, with a hopeful grin, but it takes a lot of strength. Perhaps it does if you're not used to it, said Sarah with friendly sympathy. But you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often. I wouldn't try so hard just at first. It will come to you after a while. I'll just tell you what things are. Look at these. She held an old summer hat in her hand, which she had fished out of the bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled the wreath off. These are garlands for the feast, she said grandly. They fill all the air with perfume. There's a mug on the wash-sand, Becky. Oh, and bring the soap-dish for a centrepiece. Becky handed them to her reverently. What are they now, miss? she inquired. You'd think there was made a crockery, but I know they ain't. This is a carven flaggan, said Sarah, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the month. And this, bending tenderly over the soap-dish and heaping it with roses, is purest alabaster encrusted with gems. She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips, which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream. My! ain't it lovely, whispered Becky. If we just had something for bombon dishes, Sarah murmured. There, darting to the trunk again, I remember I saw something this minute. It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick, which was to like the feast. Only the magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a long, unopened trunk. But Sarah drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders, and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with baited breath. This year, she suggested, with a glance round the attic, is it the best deal now, or has it turned into something different? Oh, yes, yes, said Sarah, quite different. It is a banquet hall. My, I miss, ejaculated Becky, a blanket hall, and she turned to view the splendours about her with awed bewilderment. A banquet hall, said Sarah. A vast chamber where feasts are given. It has a vaulted roof and a minstrel's gallery, and a huge chimney filled with blazing, open logs, and it is brilliant with wax and tapers twinkling on every side. My, I miss, Sarah! gasped Becky again. Then the door opened, and Ermengard came in rather staggering under the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. To enter from the chilled darkness outside, and find oneself confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board draped with red, adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant indeed. Oh, Sarah! she cried out. You're the cleverest girl I ever saw. Isn't it nice? said Sarah. There are things out of my old trunk. I asked my magic, and it told me to go and look. But oh, miss! cried Becky, wait till she's told you what they are. They ain't just—oh, miss, please tell her! appealing to Sarah. So Sarah told her, and because her magic helped her, she made her almost see it all. The golden platters, the vaulted spaces, the blazing logs, the twinkling wax and tapers. As things were taken out of a hamper, the frosted cakes, the fruits, the bombons and the wine, the feast became a splendid thing. End of Chapter 15 Part 2 Chapter 15 Part 3 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 15 Continued It's like a real party, cried Ermingard. It's like Queen's Table, sighed Becky. Then Ermingard had a sudden brilliant thought. I'll tell you what, Sarah, she said. Pretend you're a princess now, and this is a royal feast. But it's your feast, said Sarah. You must be the princess, and we will be your maids of honour. Oh, I can't, said Ermingard. I'm too fat, and I don't know how. You be her. Well, if you want me to, said Sarah. But suddenly she thought of something else, and ran to the rusty great. There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here, she exclaimed. If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it was a real fire. She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room. By the time it stops blazing, Sarah said, we shall forget about it's not being real. She stood in the dancing glow and smiled. Doesn't it look real, she said? Now we will begin the party. She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to Ermingard and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream. Advanced fair damsels, she said in her happy dream voice, and besieged at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you. She turned her head slightly toward the corner of the room. What o' there, minstrels? Strike up with your vials and bassoons. Princesses, she explained rapidly to Ermingard and Becky, always had minstrels to play at their feast. Pretend there's a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. Now we will begin. They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their hands. Not one of them had time to do more, when they all three sprang to their feet and turned pale faces toward the door, listening, listening. Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each of them recognized the angry mounting tread and knew that the end of all things had come. It's the missus, choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon the floor. Yes, said Sarah, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white face. Miss Minchin has found us out. Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale herself, but it was with rage. She looked from the frightened faces to the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of the burnt paper in the grate. I have been suspecting something of this sort, she exclaimed, but I did not dream of such audacity. Lavinia was telling the truth. So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret and had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her ears for a second time. You impudent creature, she said, you leave the house in the morning. Sarah stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. Ermingard burst into tears. Oh, don't send her away, she sobbed. My aunt sent me the hamper, we're only having a party. So I see, said Miss Minchin witheringly, with the princess Sarah at the head of the table. She turned fiercely on Sarah. It is your doing, I know, she cried. Ermingard would never have thought of such a thing. You decorated the table, I suppose, with this rubbish. She stamped her foot at Becky. Oh, to your attic, she commanded. And Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking. Then it was Sarah's turn again. I will attend to you to-morrow. You shall have neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper. I have not had either dinner or supper to-day, Miss Minchin, said Sarah rather faintly. Then all the better, you will have something to remember. Don't stand there. Put those things into the hamper again. She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and caught sight of Ermingard's new books. And you, to Ermingard, have brought your beautiful new books into this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay there all day to-morrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would he say if he knew where you are to-night? Something she saw in Sarah's grave-fixed gaze at this moment made her turn on her fiercely. What are you thinking of? She demanded. Why do you look at me like that? I was wondering, answered Sarah, as she had answered that notable day in the schoolroom. What were you wondering? It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness in Sarah's manner. It was only sad and quiet. I was wondering, she said in a low voice, what my papa would say if he knew where I am to-night. Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before, and her anger expressed itself as before, in an intemperate fashion. She flew at her and shook her. You insolent, unmanageable child! She cried. How dare you! How dare you! She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the hamper in a jumbled heap, thrusted into Ermengard's arms, and pushed her before her toward the door. I will leave you to wonder, she said, go to bed this instant! And she shut the door behind herself and Paul, stumbling Ermengard, and left Sarah standing quite alone. The dream was quite at an end. The last spark had died out of the paper in the grate, and left only black tinder. The table was left bare. The golden plates and richly embroidered lapkins and garlands were transformed again into old handkerchiefs, scraps of red and white paper, and discarded artificial flowers, all scattered on the floor. The minstrels in the minstrel gallery had stolen away, and the vials and bassoons were still. Emily was sitting with her back against the wall, staring very hard. Sarah saw her, and went and picked her up with trembling hands. There isn't any banquet left, Emily, she said, and there isn't any princess. There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille. And she sat down and hid her face. What would have happened if she had not hidden it just then, and if she had chance to look up at the skylight at the wrong moment? I do not know. Perhaps the end of this chapter might have been quite different. Because if she had glanced at the skylight, she would certainly have been startled by what she would have seen. She would have seen exactly the same face pressed against the glass, and peering in at her as it had peered in earlier in the evening, when she had been talking to Ermengard. But she did not look up. She sat with her little black head in her arms for some time. She always sat like that when she was trying to bear something in silence. Then she got up and went slowly to bed. I can't pretend anything else while I'm awake, she said. There wouldn't be any use in trying. If I go to sleep, perhaps a dream will come and pretend for me. She suddenly felt so tired, perhaps through want of food, that she sat down on the edge of the bed quite weakly. Suppose there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little dancing flames, she murmured. Suppose there was a comfortable chair before it. And suppose there was a small table near, with a little hot, hot supper on it. And suppose, as she drew the thin coverings over her, suppose this was a beautiful soft bed with fleecy blankets and large downy pillows. Suppose, suppose. And her very weariness was good to her, for her eyes closed, and she fell fast asleep. She did not know how long she slept, but she had been tired enough to sleep deeply and profoundly, too deeply and soundly, to be disturbed by anything, even by the squeaks and scamperings of Melchizedek's entire family, if all his sons and daughters had chosen to come out of their hole to fight and tumble and play. When she awakened it was rather suddenly, and she did not know that any particular thing had called her out of her sleep. The truth was, however, that it was a sound which had called her back, a real sound, the click of the skylight, as it fell in closing after a lithe white figure which slipped through it, and crouched down close by upon the slates of the roof, just near enough to see what happened in the attic, but not near enough to be seen. At first she did not open her eyes. She felt too sleepy and, curiously enough, too warm and comfortable. She was so warm and comfortable indeed, that she did not believe she was really awake. She never was as warm and cosy as this, except in some lovely vision. What a nice dream, she murmured. I feel quite warm. I don't want to wake up. Of course it was a dream. She felt as if warm, delightful bed-clothes were heaped upon her. She could actually feel blankets, and when she put out her hand it touched something exactly like a satin-covered, eyed-down quilt. She must not awaken from this delight. She must be quite still and make it last. But she could not. Even though she kept her eyes closed tightly, she could not. Something was forcing her to awaken. Something in the room. It was a sense of light and a sound—the sound of a crackling, roaring, little fire. Oh, I'm awakening, she said mournfully. I can't help it. I can't. Her eyes opened in spite of herself, and then she actually smiled, for what she saw she had never seen in the attic before, and she knew she never should see. Oh, I haven't awakened, she whispered, daring to rise on her elbow and look all about her. I'm dreaming yet. She knew it must be a dream, for if she were awake such things could not. Could not be. Do you wonder that she felt sure that she had not come back to earth? This is what she saw. In the grate there was a glowing, blazing fire. On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and boiling. Spread upon the floor was a thick, warm crimson rug, before the fire a folding chair unfolded and with cushions on it. By the chair a small folding table unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it spread small covered dishes—a cup, a saucer, a teapot. On the bed were new warm coverings and a satin-covered down quilt. At the foot a curious wadded silk robe, a pair of quilted slippers and some books. The room of her dream seemed changed into fairyland. It was flooded with warm light, for a bright lamp stood on the table covered with a rosy shade. She sat up, resting on her elbow, and her breathing came short and fast. It does not melt away, she panted. Oh, I never had such a dream before! She scarcely dared to stir, but at last she pushed the bedclothes aside and put her feet on the floor with a rapturous smile. I am dreaming I am getting out of bed, she heard her own voice say, and then, as she stood up in the midst of it all, turning slowly from side to side, I am dreaming it stays real. I am dreaming it feels real. It's bewitched, or I'm bewitched. I only think I see it all. Her words began to hurry themselves. If I can only keep on thinking it, she cried, I don't care, I don't care. She stood panting a moment longer, and then cried out again, oh, it isn't true, she said. It can't be true. But oh, how true it seems! The blazing fire drew her to it, and she knelt down and held out her hands close to it, so close that the heat made her start back. A fire I only dreamed wouldn't be hot, she cried. She sprang up, touched the table, the dishes, the rug. She went to the bed and touched the blankets. She took up the soft, wadded dressing gown, and suddenly clutched it to her breast and held it to her cheek. It's warm! It's soft! she almost sobbed. It's real! It must be! She threw it over her shoulders and put her feet into the slippers. They're real, too. It's all real, she cried. I am not—I am not dreaming! She almost staggered to the books and opened the one which lay upon the top. Something was written on the fly-leaf, just a few words, and these were to the little girl in the attic, from a friend. When she saw that, wasn't it a strange thing for her to do? She put her face down upon the page and burst into tears. I don't know who it is, she said, but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend. She took her candle and stole out of her own room and into Becky's, and stood by her bedside. Becky! Becky! She whispered as loudly as she dared. Wake up! When Becky wakened, and she sat upright, staring aghast, her face still smudged with traces of tears. Beside her stood a little figure in a luxurious, wadded robe of crimson silk. The face she saw was a shining, wonderful thing. The princess, Sarah, as she remembered her, stood at her very bedside, holding a candle in her hand. Come! she said. Oh, Becky, come! Becky was too frightened to speak. She simply got up and followed her with her mouth and eyes open and without a word. And when they crossed the threshold, Sarah shut the door gently and drew her into the warm, glowing midst of things which made her brain real and her hungry senses faint. It's true, it's true, she cried. I've touched them all. They're as real as we are. The magic has come and done it, Becky, while we were asleep. The magic that won't let those worse things ever quite happen. THE VISITOR Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. How they crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made so much of itself in the little grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes and found rich, hot, savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. The mug from the washstand was used as Becky's tea-cup, and the tea was so delicious that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea. They were warm and full-fed and happy, and it was just like Sarah that, having found her strange good fortune wheel, she should give herself up to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing that happened, and almost to cease in a short time to find it bewildering. I don't know any one in the world who could have done it, she said, but there has been someone, and here we are sitting by their fire and—and it's true. And whoever it is, wherever they are, I'll have a friend, Becky. Someone is my friend. It cannot be denied that as they sat before the blazing fire and ate the nourishing, comfortable food, they felt a kind of rapturous awe, and looked into each other's eyes with something like doubt. Do you think, Becky faulted once in a whisper, do you think it could melt away, miss? Hadn't we better be quick? And she hastily crammed her sandwich into her mouth, if it was only a dream, kitchen manners would be overlooked. No, it won't melt away, said Sarah. I am eating this muffin, and I can taste it. You never really eat things in dreams. You only think you are going to eat them. Besides, I keep giving myself pinches, and I touched a hot piece of coal just now on purpose. The sleepy comfort which at length almost overpowered them was a heavenly thing. It was the drowsiness of happy, well-fed childhood, and they sat in the fire-glow and luxuriated in it, until Sarah found herself turning to look at her transformed bed. There were even blankets enough to share with Becky. The narrow couch in the next attic was more comfortable that night than its occupant had ever dreamed that it could be. As she went out of the room, Becky turned upon the threshold and looked about her with devouring eyes. If it ain't here in the morning, miss, she said, it's spinny at a night anyways, and I shan't never forget it. She looked at each particular thing as if to commit it to memory. The fire was there, pointing with her finger, and the table was before it, and the lamp was there, and the light looked rosy red, and there was a satin cover on your bed, and a warm rug on the floor, and everything looked beautiful, and she paused a second and laid her hand on her stomach tenderly. There was soup and sandwiches and muffins, there was. And with this conviction of reality at least, she went away. Through the mysterious agency which works in schools and among servants, it was quite well known in the morning that Sarah Crue was in horrible disgrace, that Ermengard was under punishment, and that Becky would have been packed out of the house before breakfast, but that a scullery maid could not be dispensed with at once. The servants knew that she was allowed to stay because Miss Mention could not easily find another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden slave for so few shillings a week. The elder girls in the schoolroom knew that if Miss Mention did not send Sarah away, it was for practical reasons of her own. "'She's growing so fast and learning such a lot somehow,' said Jesse to Levinia, that she will be given classes soon, and Miss Mention knows she will have to work for nothing. It was rather nasty of you, Laby, to tell about her having fun in the garret. How did you find it out? I got it out of Lottie. She's such a baby, she didn't know she was telling me. There was nothing nasty at all in speaking to Miss Mention. I felt it my duty, prigishly. She was being deceitful, and it's ridiculous that she should look so grand and be made so much of in her rags and tatters. What were they doing when Miss Mention caught them? Pretending some silly thing. Ermengard had taken up her hamper to share with Sarah and Becky. She never invites us to share things. Not that I care, but it's rather vulgar of her to share with servant-girls and attics. I wonder Miss Mention didn't turn Sarah out, even if she does want her for a teacher. If she was turned out, where would she go? inquired Jesse, a trifle anxiously. How do I know? snapped Levinia. She looked rather queer when she comes into the schoolroom this morning, I should think, after what's happened. She had no dinner yesterday, and she's not to have any today. Jesse was not as ill-natured as she was silly. She picked up her book with a little jerk. Well, I think it's horrid, she said. They've no right to starve her to death. When Sarah went into the kitchen that morning, the cook looked a scounce at her, and so did the housemates. But she passed them hurriedly. She had, in fact, overslept herself a little, and as Becky had done the same, neither had had time to see the other, and each had come downstairs in haste. Sarah went into the scullery. Becky was violently scrubbing a kettle and was actually gurgling a little song in her throat. She looked up with a wildly elated face. It was there when I waken, miss, the black kid, she whispered excitedly. It was as real as it was last night. So was mine, said Sarah. It is all there now, all of it. While I was dressing, I ate some of the cold things we left. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord! Becky uttered the exclamation in a sort of rapturous groan, and dug her head over her kettle just in time as the cook came in from the kitchen. Miss Minchin had expected to see in Sarah when she appeared in the schoolroom very much what Lavinia had expected to see. Sarah had always been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or looked frightened. When she was scolded, she stood still and listened politely with a grave face. When she was punished, she performed her extra tasks or went without her meals, making no complaint or outward sign of rebellion. The very fact that she never made an impudent answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impuence in itself. But after yesterday's deprivation of meals, the violent scene of last night, the prospect of hunger today, she must surely have broken down. It would be strange indeed if she did not come downstairs with pale cheeks and red eyes and an unhappy, humbled face. Miss Minchin saw her for the first time when she entered the schoolroom to hear the little French class recite its lessons and superintendent's exercises. And she came in with a springing step, color in her cheeks, and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. It was the most astonishing thing Miss Minchin had ever known. It gave her quite a shock. What was a child made of? What could such a thing mean? She called her at once to her desk. You do not look as if you realize that you are in this grace, she said. Are you absolutely hardened? The truth is that when one is still a child, or even if one is grown up, and has been well fed and has slept long and softly and warm, when one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story and has wakened to find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were, and one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes. Miss Minchin was almost struck dumb by the look of Sarah's eyes when she made her perfectly respectful answer. I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin, she said. I know that I am in this grace. Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a fortune. It is an impotence, and remember you ought to have no food to-day. Yes, Miss Minchin, Sarah answered, but as she turned away her heart leaped with the memory of what yesterday had been. If the magic had not saved me just in time, she thought, how horrible it would have been. She can't be very hungry, whispered Lavinia. Just look at her. Perhaps she is pretending she has had a good breakfast, with a spiteful laugh. She's different from other people, said Jesse, watching Sarah with her class. Sometimes I'm a bit frightened of her. Ridiculous thing, ejaculated Lavinia. All through the day the light was in Sarah's face, and the colour in her cheek. The servants cast puzzled glances at her, and whispered to each other, and Miss Amelia's small blue eyes wore an expression of bewilderment. What such an audacious look of well-being under august displeasure could mean, she could not understand. It was, however, just like Sarah's singular obstinate way. She was probably determined to brave the matter out. One thing Sarah had resolved upon as she thought things over. The wonders which had happened must be kept a secret, if such a thing were possible. If Miss Minchin should choose to mount to the attic again, of course all would be discovered. But it did not seem likely that she would do so for some time at least, unless she was led by suspicion. Irmingard and Lottie would be watched with such strictness that they would not dare to steal out of their beds again. Irmingard could be told the story and trusted to keep it secret. If Lottie made any discoveries, she could be bound to secrecy also. Perhaps the magic itself would help to hide its own marvels. But whatever happens, Sarah kept saying to herself all day, whatever happens, somewhere in the world there is a heavenly kind person who is my friend, my friend. If I never know who it is, if I never can even thank him, I shall never feel quite so lonely. Oh, the magic is good to me. If it was possible for weather to be worse than it had been the day before, it was worse this day, wetter, muddier, colder. There were more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and knowing that Sarah was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything matter when one's magic has just proved itself one's friend? Sarah's supper of the night before had given her strength. She knew that she should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had naturally begun to be hungry again before evening, she felt that she could bear it until breakfast time the following day, when her meals would surely be given to her again. It was quite late when she was at last allowed to go upstairs. She had been told to go into the schoolroom and study until ten o'clock, and she had become interested in her work and remained over her books later. When she reached the top flight of stairs and stood before the attic door, it must be confessed that her heart beat rather fast. Of course, it might all have been taken away, she whispered, trying to be brave. It might only have been lent to me for just that one awful night. But it was lent to me. I had it. It was real. She pushed the door open and went in. Once inside she gasped slightly, shut the door, and stood with her back against it, looking from side to side. The magic had been there again. It actually had, and it had done even more than before. The fire was blazing in lovely, leaping flames more merrily than ever. A number of new things had been brought into the attic, which so altered the look of it that if she had not been past doubting, she would have rubbed her eyes. Upon the low table another supper stood, this time with cups and plates for Becky as well as herself. A piece of bright, heavy, strange embroidery covered the battered mantle, and on it some ornaments had been placed. All the bare, ugly things which could be covered with draperies had been concealed, and made to look quite pretty. Some odd materials of which colours had been fastened against the wall with fine, sharp tacks, so sharp that they could be pressed into the wood in plaster without hammering. Some brilliant fans were pinned up, and there were several large cushions, big and substantial enough to use as seats. A wooden box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it quite wore the air of a sofa. Sarah slowly moved away from the door and simply sat down and looked and looked again. It is exactly like something fairy come true, she said. There isn't the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything, diamonds or bags of gold, and they would appear. That wouldn't be any stranger than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged damp Sarah? And to think I used to pretend and pretend and wish there were fairies. The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am living in a fairy story. I feel as if I might be a fairy myself and be able to turn things into anything else. She rose and knocked upon the wall for the prisoner in the next cell, and the prisoner came. When she entered, she almost dropped in a heap upon the floor. For a few seconds she quite lost her breath. Oh, lords! she gasped. Oh, lords, miss! You see! said Sarah. On this night Becky sat on a cushion upon the hearth rug and had a cup and saucer of her own. When Sarah went to bed, she found that she had a new thick mattress and big downy pillows. Her old mattress and pillow had been removed to Becky's bedstead, and consequently, with these additions, Becky had been supplied with unheard of comfort. Where does it all come from, Becky broke forth once. Lord, who does it, miss? Don't let us even ask, said Sarah. If it were not that I want to say thank you, and I would rather not know, it makes it more beautiful. From that time life became more wonderful day by day. The fairy story continued. Almost every day something new was done. Some new comfort or ornament appeared each time Sarah opened the door at night, until, in a short time, the attic was a beautiful little room full of all sorts of odd and luxurious things. The ugly walls were gradually entirely covered with pictures and draperies. In genius pieces of folding furniture appeared, a bookshelf was hung up and filled with books. New comforts and conveniences appeared one by one, until there seemed nothing left to be desired. When Sarah went downstairs in the morning, the remains of the supper were on the table, and when she returned to the attic in the evening, the magician had removed them and left another nice little meal. Miss Minchin was as harsh and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia, as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar and rude. Sarah was sent on errands in all weathers, and scolded and driven hither and thither. She was scarcely allowed to speak to Ermondgaard and Lottie. Lavinia sneered at the increasing shabbiness of her clothes, and the other girls stared curiously at her when she appeared in the schoolroom. But what did it all matter while she was living in this wonderful mysterious story? It was more romantic and delightful than anything she had ever invented to comfort her starved young soul and save herself from despair. Sometimes when she was scolded she could scarcely keep from smiling. If you only knew, she was saying to herself, if you only knew. The comfort and happiness she enjoyed were making her stronger, and she had them always to look forward to. If she came home from her errands wet and tired and hungry, she knew she would soon be warm and well fed after she had climbed the stairs. During the hardest day she could occupy herself blissfully by thinking of what she should see when she opened the attic door, and wondering what new delight had been prepared for her. In a very short time she began to look less thin. Color came into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem so much too big for her face. Sarah Crew looks wonderfully well, Miss Minchin remarked, disapprovingly to her sister. Yes! answered poor, silly Miss Amelia. She is absolutely fattening. She was beginning to look like a little starved crow. Starved? exclaimed Miss Minchin angrily. There was no reason why she should look starved. She always had plenty to eat. Oh! of course! agreed Miss Amelia humbly, alarmed to find that she had, as usual, said the wrong thing. There is something very disagreeable in seeing that sort of thing in a child her age, said Miss Minchin with haughty vagueness. What sort of thing? Miss Amelia ventured. It might almost be called defiance, answered Miss Minchin, feeling annoyed, because she knew the thing she resented was nothing like defiance, and she did not know what other unpleasant term to use. The spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and broken by the changes she has had to submit to. But upon my word, she seems as little subdued as if she were a princess. Do you remember, put in the unwise Miss Amelia, what she said to you that day in the schoolroom about what you would do if you found out that she was, no, I don't, said Miss Minchin, don't talk nonsense. But she remembered very clearly indeed. Very naturally even Becky was beginning to look plumper and less frightened. She could not help it. She had her share in the secret fairy story, too. She had two mattresses, two pillows, plenty of bed covering, and every night a hot supper and a seat on the cushions by the fire. The Bastille had melted away, the prisoners no longer existed. Two comforted children sat in the midst of delights. Sometimes Sarah read aloud from her books. Sometimes she learned her own lessons. Sometimes she sat and looked into the fire, and tried to imagine who her friend could be, and wished she could say to him some of the things in her heart. Then it came about that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to the door and left several parcels. All were addressed in large letters to the little girl in the right-hand attic. Sarah herself was sent to open the door and take them in. She laid the two largest parcels on the hall table, and was looking at the address when Miss Minchin came down the stairs and saw her. Take the things to the young lady to whom they belong, she said severely. Don't stand there staring at them. They belong to me, answered Sarah quietly. To you, exclaimed Miss Minchin, what do you mean? I don't know where they come from, said Sarah, but they are addressed to me. I sleep in the right-hand attic. Becky has the other one. Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at the parcels with an excited expression. What is in them? she demanded. I don't know, replied Sarah. Open them, she ordered. Sarah did as she was told. When the packages were unfolded, Miss Minchin's countenance wore suddenly a singular expression. What she saw was pretty and comfortable clothing, clothing of different kinds, shoes, stockings, and gloves, and a warm and beautiful coat. There was even a nice hat and an umbrella. They were all good and expensive things, and on the pocket of the coat was pinned the paper on which were written these words. To be worn every day, will be replaced by others when necessary. Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an incident which suggested strange things to her sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a mistake after all, and that the neglected child had some powerful though eccentric friend in the background, perhaps some previously unknown relation who had suddenly traced her whereabouts and chose to provide for her in this mysterious and fantastic way? Relations were sometimes very odd, particularly rich old bachelor uncles who did not care for having children near them. A man of that sort might prefer to overlook his young relations welfare at a distance. Such a person, however, would be sure to be crotchety and hot-tempered enough to be easily offended. It would not be very pleasant if there were such a one, and he should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, the scant food, and the hard work. She felt very queer indeed, and very uncertain, and she gave a side glance at Sarah. Well, she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the little girl lost her father. Someone is very kind to you. As the things have been sent, and you are to have new ones when they are worn out, you may as well go and put them on and look respectable. After you are dressed, you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the schoolroom. You need not go out on any more errands today. About half an hour afterward, when the schoolroom door opened and Sarah walked in, the entire seminary was struck dumb. My word! ejaculated Jesse, jogging Lavinia's elbow. Look at the Princess Sarah! Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia looked, she turned quite red. It was the Princess Sarah, indeed. At least, since the days when she had been a princess, Sarah had never looked as she did now. She did not seem the Sarah they had seen come down the back stairs a few hours ago. She was dressed in the kind of frock Lavinia had been used to envying her the possession of. It was deep and warm in colour and beautifully made. Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jesse had admired them, and the hair, whose heavy locks had made her look rather like a shetland pony when it fell loose about her small, odd face, was tied back with a ribbon. Perhaps someone has left her a fortune, Jesse whispered. I always thought something would happen to her. She's so queer. Perhaps the diamond minds have suddenly reappeared again, said Lavinia scathingly. Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly thing. Sarah, broke in Miss Minchin's deep voice, come and sit here. And while the whole schoolroom stared and pushed with elbows and scarcely made any effort to conceal its excited curiosity, Sarah went to her old seat of honour, and bent her head over her books. That night when she went to her room, after she and Becky had eaten their supper, she sat and looked at the fire seriously for a long time. Are you making something up in your head, Miss? Becky inquired with respectful softness. When Sarah sat in silence and looked into the coals with dreaming eyes, it generally meant that she was making a news story. But this time she was not, and she shook her head. No, she answered. I am wondering what I ought to do. Becky stared, still respectfully. She was filled with something approaching reverence for everything Sarah did and said. I can't help thinking about my friend, Sarah explained. If he wants to keep himself a secret, it would be rude to try and find out who he is. But I do so want him to know how thankful I am to him and how happy he has made me. Anyone who is kind wants to know when people have been made happy. They care for that more than for being thanked. I wish—I do wish—she stopped short, because her eyes at that instant fell upon something standing on a table in a corner. It was something she had found in the room when she came out to it only two days before. It was a little writing case, fitted with paper and envelopes and pens and ink. Oh! she exclaimed. Why did I not think of that before? She rose and went to the corner, and brought the case back to the fire. I can write to him, she said joyfully, and leave it on the table. Then perhaps the person who takes the things away will take it too. I won't ask him anything. He won't mind my thanking him, I feel sure. So she wrote a note. This is what she said. I hope you will not think it is impolite that I should write this note to you, when you wish to keep yourself a secret. Please believe I do not mean to be impolite, or try to find out anything at all. I only want to thank you for being so kind to me, so heavenly kind, and making everything like a fairy story. I am so grateful to you, and I am so happy, and so is Becky. Becky feels just as thankful as I do. It is all just as beautiful and wonderful to her as it is to me. We used to be so lonely and cold and hungry, and now—oh, just thank you for what you have done for us. Please let me just say these words. It seems as if I ought to say them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The little girl in the attic. The next morning she left this on the little table, and in the evening it had been taken away with the other things, so she knew the magician had received it, and she was happier for the thought. She was reading one of her new books to Becky just before they went to their respective beds, when her attention was attracted by a sound at the skylight. When she looked up from her page, she saw that Becky had heard the sound also, as she had turned her head to look and was listening rather nervously. Something's there, miss, she whispered. Yes, said Sarah slowly. It sounds—rather like a cat—trying to get in. She left her chair and went to the skylight. It was a queer little sound, she heard, like a soft scratching. She suddenly remembered something and laughed. She remembered a quaint little intruder who had made his way into the attic once before. She had seen him that very afternoon, sitting disconsolently on a table before a window in the Indian gentleman's house. Suppose, she whispered in pleased excitement, just suppose it was the monkey who got away again. Oh, I wish it was. She climbed on a chair, very cautiously raised the skylight and peeped out. It had been snowing all day, and on the snow, quite near her, crouched a tiny, shivering figure whose small black face wrinkled itself piteously at sight of her. It is the monkey, she cried out. He has crept out of the last gauze attic and he saw the light. Becky ran to her side. Are you going to let him in, miss? She said. Yes, Sarah answered joyfully. It's too cold for monkeys to be out. They're delicate. I'll coax him in. She put her hand out delicately, speaking in a coaxing voice, as she spoke to the sparrows and to Melchizedek, as if she were some friendly little animal herself. Come along, monkey, darling, she said. I won't hurt you. He knew she would not hurt him. He knew it before she laid her soft caressing little pore on him and drew him towards her. He had felt human love in the slim, brown hands of ramdass, and he felt it in hers. He let her lift him through the skylight, and when he found himself in her arms, he cuddled up to her breast and looked up into her face. Nice monkey, nice monkey, she crooned, kissing his funny head. Oh, I do love little animal things. He was evidently glad to get to the fire, and when she sat down and held him on her knee, he looked from her to Becky with mingled interest and appreciation. He is plain looking, Miss Aitie, said Becky. He looks like a very ugly baby, loved Sarah. I beg your pardon, monkey, but I am glad you are not a baby. Your mother couldn't be proud of you, and no one would dare to say you looked like any of your relations. Oh, I do like you. She leaned back in her chair and reflected. Perhaps he's sorry he's so ugly, she said, and it's always on his mind. I wonder if he has a mind. Monkey, my love, have you a mind? But the monkey only put up a tiny pore and scratched his head. What shall you do with him? Becky asked. I shall let him sleep with me to-night, and then take him back to the Indian gentleman to-morrow. I am sorry to take you back, monkey, but you must go. You ought to be fondest of your own family. And I'm not a real relation. And when she went to bed, she made him a nest at her feet, and he curled up and slept there, as if he were a baby and much pleased with his quarters. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 17 It is the Child The next afternoon three members of the large family sat in the Indian gentleman's library during their best to cheer him up. They had been allowed to come in to perform this office because he had specially invited them. He had been living in a state of suspense for some time, and today he was waiting for a certain event very anxiously. This event was the return of Mr. Carmichael from Moscow. His stay there had been prolonged from week to week. On his first arrival there, he had not been able to satisfactorily trace the family he had gone in search of. When he felt at last sure that he had found them and had gone to their house, he had been told that they were absent on a journey. His efforts to reach them had been unavailing, so he had decided to remain in Moscow until their return. Mr. Karrisford sat in his reclining chair, and Janet sat on the floor beside him. He was very fond of Janet. Nora had found a footstool, and Donald was astride the tiger's head, which ornamented the rug made of the animal's skin. It must be owned that he was riding it rather violently. Don't cheer up so loud, Donald, Janet said. When you come to cheer an ill person up, you don't cheer him up at the top of your voice. Perhaps the cheering up is too loud, Mr. Karrisford, turning to the Indian gentleman. But he only patted her shoulder. No, it isn't, he answered, and it keeps me from thinking too much. I'm going to be quiet, Donald shouted. Well, all be as quiet as mice. Mice don't make a noise like that, said Janet. Donald made a bridal of his handkerchief, and bounced up and down on the tiger's head. A whole lot of mice might, he said cheerfully, a thousand mice might. I don't believe fifty thousand mice would, said Janet severely, and we have to be as quiet as one mouse. Mr. Karrisford laughed and patted her shoulder again. Papa won't be very long now, she said. May we talk about the lost little girl? I don't think I could talk much about anything else just now, the Indian gentleman answered, knitting his forehead with a tired look. We like her so much, said Nora. We call her the little unfairly princess. Why, the Indian gentleman inquired, because the fancies of the large family always made him forget things a little. It was Janet who answered. It is because, though she is not exactly a fairy, she will be so rich when she is found that she will be like a princess in a fairy tale. We called her the fairy princess at first, but it didn't quite suit. Is it true, said Nora, that her papa gave all his money to a friend to put in a mind that had diamonds in it, and then the friend thought he had lost it all and ran away because he felt as if he was a robber? But he wasn't really, you know, put in Janet hastily. The Indian gentleman took hold of her hand quickly. No, he wasn't really, he said. I'm sorry for the friend, Janet said. I can't help it. He didn't mean to do it, and it would break his heart. I'm sure it would break his heart. You're an understanding little woman, Janet, the Indian gentleman said, and he held her hand close. Did you tell Mr. Karrisford—Donald shouted again— about the little girl who isn't a beggar? Did you tell him she has new nice clothes? Perhaps she's been found by somebody when she was lost. There's a cab, exclaimed Janet. It's stopping before the door. It is papa. They all ran to the windows to look out. Yes, it is papa, Donald proclaimed, but there is no little girl. All three of them incontinently fled the room and tumbled into the hall. It was in this way they always welcomed their father. They were to be heard jumping up and down, clapping their hands and being caught up and kissed. Mr. Karrisford made an effort to rise and sank back again. It is no use, he said. What a wreck I am. Mr. Karr Michael's voice approached the door. No children, he was saying. You may come in after I have talked to Mr. Karrisford. Go and play with Ram Dass. Then the door opened and he came in. He looked rosier than ever and brought an atmosphere of freshness and health with him. But his eyes were disappointed and anxious as they met the invalid's look of eager question, even as they grasped each other's hands. What news, Mr. Karrisford asked. The child of the Russian people adopted? She is not the child we are looking for, was Mr. Karr Michael's answer. She is much younger than Captain Cruz, little girl. Her name is Emily Karoo. I have seen and talked to her. The Russians were able to give me every detail. How wearied and miserable the Indian gentleman looked, his hand dropped for Mr. Karr Michael's. Then the search has to be begun all over again, he said. That is all. Please, sit down. Mr. Karr Michael took a seat. Somehow he had gradually grown fond of this unhappy man. He was himself so well and happy and so surrounded by cheerfulness and love that desolation and broken health seemed pitifully unbearable things. If there had been the sound of just one gay little high-pitched voice in the house, it would have been so much less forlorn. And that a man should be compelled to carry about in his breast the thought that he had seemed to wrong the deserted child was not a thing one could face. Come, come, he said in his cheery voice, we'll find her yet. We must begin at once. No time must be lost, Mr. Karrisford fretted. Have you any new suggestion to make? Any whatsoever? Mr. Karr Michael felt rather restless and he rose and began to pace the room with a thoughtful, though uncertain face. Well, perhaps, he said, I don't know what it may be worth. The fact is, an idea occurred to me as I was thinking the thing over in the train on the journey from Dover. What was it? If she is alive, she is somewhere. Yes, she is somewhere. We have searched the schools in Paris. Let us give up Paris and begin in London. That was my idea—to search London. There are schools enough in London, so Mr. Karrisford, then he slightly started roused by a recollection. By the way, there is one next door. Then we will begin there. We cannot begin nearer than next door. No, Karrisford said. There is a child there who interests me, but she is not a pupil, and she is a little dark forlorn creature, as unlike poor crew as a child could be. Perhaps the magic was of work again at that very moment, the beautiful magic. It really seemed as if it might be so. What was it that brought Rambas into the room, even as his master spoke, salaming respectfully, but with a scarcely concealed touch of excitement in his dark, flashing eyes? Sa'ib, he said. The child herself has come. The child that Sa'ib felt pity for. She brings back the monkey who had again run away to her attic under the roof. I have asked that she remain. It was my thought that it would please the Sa'ib to see and speak with her. Who is she? inquired Carmichael. God knows, Mr. Karrisford answered. She is the child I spoke of, a little drudge at the school. He waved his hand to Rambas and addressed him. Yes, I should like to see her. Go and bring her in. Then he turned to Mr. Carmichael. While you have been away, he explained, I have been desperate. The days were so dark and long. Rambas told me of this child's miseries, and together we invented a romantic plan to help her. I suppose it was a childish thing to do, but it gave me something to plan and think of. Without the help of an agile, soft-footed oriental like Rambas, however, it could not have been done. Then Sarah came into the room. She carried the monkey in her arms, and he evidently did not intend to part from her, if it could be helped. He was clinging to her and chattering, and the interesting excitement of finding herself in the Indian gentleman's room had brought a flush to Sarah's cheeks. Your monkey ran away again, she said in her pretty voice. He came to my garret window last night, and I took him in because it was so cold. I would have brought him back if it had not been so late. I knew you were ill and might not like to be disturbed. The Indian gentleman's hollow eyes dwelt on her with curious interest. That was very thoughtful of you, he said. Sarah looked toward Rambas, who stood near the door. Shall I give him to the Laskar? she asked. How do you know he is a Laskar? said the Indian gentleman, smiling a little. Oh, I know Laskars, Sarah said, handing over the reluctant monkey. I was born in India. The Indian gentleman sat upright so suddenly, and with such a change of expression, that she was for a moment quite startled. You were born in India, he exclaimed, were you? Come here. And he held out his hand. Sarah went to him and laid her hand in his, as he seemed to want to take it. She stood still, and her green gray eyes met his, wanderingly. Some things seemed to be the matter with him. You live next door, he demanded. Yes, I live at Miss Minchon Seminary. But you are not one of her pupils. A strange little smile hovered about Sarah's mouth. She hesitated a moment. I don't think I know exactly what I am, she replied. Why not? At first I was a pupil and a parlor-border, but now you were a pupil. What are you now? A queer little sad smile was on Sarah's lips again. I sleep in the attic next to the scullery-may, she said. I run errands for the cook. I do anything she tells me, and I teach the little ones their lessons. Question her, Carmichael, said Mr. Karrisford, sinking back as if he had lost his strength. Question her, I cannot. The big, kind father of a large family knew how to question little girls. Sarah realised how much practice he had had when he spoke to her in his nice, encouraging voice. What do you mean by at first, my child, he inquired? When I was first taken there by my papa. Where is your papa? He died, said Sarah, very quietly. He lost all his money, and there was none left for me. There was no one to take care of me or to pay Miss Minchin. Carmichael, the Indian gentleman cried out loudly, Carmichael, we must not frighten her. Mr. Carmichael said aside to him in a quick, low voice, and he added aloud to Sarah, so you were sent up into the attic and made into a little drudge. That was about it, wasn't it? There was no one to take care of me, said Sarah. There was no money. I belonged to nobody. How did your father lose his money? The Indian gentleman broke in breathlessly. He did not lose it himself, Sarah answered, wandering still more each moment. He had a friend he was very fond of. He was very fond of him. It was his friend who took his money. He trusted his friend too much. The Indian gentleman's breath came more quickly. The friend might have meant to do no harm, he said. It might have happened through a mistake. Sarah did not know how unrelenting her quiet young voice sounded as she answered. If she had known, she would surely have tried to soften it for the Indian gentleman's sake. The suffering was just as bad for my papa, she said. It killed him. What was your father's name? The Indian gentleman said, tell me. His name was Ralph Crue, Sarah answered, feeling startled. Captain Crue. He died in India. The haggard face contracted, and Ram Das sprang to his master's side. Oh, my God! The invalid gasped. It is the child, the child. For a moment Sarah thought he was going to die. Ram Das poured out drops from a bottle and held them to his lips. Sarah stood near, trembling a little. She looked in a bewildered way at Mr. Carmichael. What child am I? She faltered. He was your father's friend, Mr. Carmichael answered her. Don't be frightened. We have been looking for you for two years. She put her hand up to her forehead, and her mouth trembled. She spoke as if she were in a dream. And I was at Miss Minchin's all the while, she half whispered. Just on the other side of the wall. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 18 I Tried Not To Be It was pretty comfortable Mrs. Carmichael who explained everything. She was sent for it once, and came across the square to take Sarah into her warm arms, and make clear to her all that had happened. The excitement of the totally unexpected discovery had been temporarily almost overpowering to Mr. Charisford in his weak condition. Upon my word, he said faintly to Mr. Carmichael when it was suggested that the little girl should go into another room. I feel as if I do not want to lose sight of her. I will take care of her, Janet said, and Mama will come in a few minutes. And it was Janet who led her away. We're so glad you're found, she said. You don't know how glad we are that you're found. Donald stood with his hands in his pockets and gazed at Sarah with reflecting and self-reproachful eyes. If I just asked you what your name was when I gave you my sixpence, he said, you would have told me it was Sarah, crew, and then you would have been found in a minute. Then Mrs. Carmichael came in. She looked very much moved, and suddenly took Sarah in her arms and kissed her. She looked bewildered, poor child, she said, and it is not to be wondered at. Sarah could only think of one thing. Was he, she said, with a glance towards the closed door of the library, was he the wicked friend? Oh, do tell me. Mrs. Carmichael was crying as she kissed her again. She felt as if she ought to be kissed very often because she had not been kissed for so long. He was not wicked, my dear, she answered. He did not really lose your papa's money. He only thought he had lost it, and because he loved him so much, his grief made him so ill that for a time he was not in his right mind. He almost died of brain fever, and long before he began to recover your poor papa was dead. And he did not know where to find me, murmured Sarah, and I was so near. Somehow she could not forget that she had been so near. He believed you were in school in France, Mrs. Carmichael explained, and he was continually misled by false clues. He has looked for you everywhere. When he saw you pass by looking so sad and neglected, he did not dream that you were his friend's poor child, but because you were a little girl too, he was sorry for you and wanted to make you happier. And he told Ram Dass to climb into your attic window and try to make you comfortable. Sarah gave a start of joy. Her whole look changed. Did Ram Dass bring the things? She cried out. Did he tell Ram Dass to do it? Did he make the dream that came true? Yes, my dear, yes. He is kind and good, and he was sorry for you, for little lost Sarah Crusade. The library door opened and Mr. Carmichael appeared, calling Sarah to him with a gesture. Mr. Carasford is better already, he said. He wants you to come to him. Sarah did not wait. When the Indian gentleman looked at her as she entered, he saw that her face was all alight. She went and stood before his chair, with her hands clasped together against her breast. You sent the things to me, she said, in a joyful, emotional little voice. The beautiful, beautiful things, you sent them. Yes, poor dear child, I did, he answered. He was weak and broken with long illness and trouble, but he looked at her with the look she remembered in her father's eyes, that look of loving her, and wanting to take her in his arms. It made her kneel down by him, just as she used to kneel by her father, when they were the dearest friends and lovers in the world. Then it is you who are my friend, she said. It is you who are my friend. And she dropped her face on his thin hand, and kissed it again and again. The man will be himself again in three weeks, Mr. Carmichael said aside to his wife. Look at his face already. In fact, he did look changed. Here was the little missus, and he had new things to think of and plan for already. In the first place there was Miss Minchin. She must be interviewed and told of the change which had taken place in the fortunes of her pupil. Sarah was not to return to the seminary at all. The Indian gentleman was very determined upon that point. She must remain where she was, and Mr. Carmichael should go and see Miss Minchin himself. I am glad I need not go back, said Sarah. She will be very angry. She does not like me, though perhaps it is my fault, because I do not like her. But oddly enough, Miss Minchin made it unnecessary for Mr. Carmichael to go to her, by actually coming in search of her pupil herself. She had wanted Sarah for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing thing. One of the housemates had seen her seal out of the area with something hidden under her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps of the house next door and enter the house. What does she mean? cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia. I do not know why I am sure, sister, asked of Miss Amelia, unless she has made friends with him because he has lived in India. It would be just like her to thrust herself upon him and tried to gain his sympathies in some such impertinent fashion, said Miss Minchin. She must have been in the house for two hours. I will not allow such presumption. I shall go and inquire into the matter and apologise for her intrusion. Sarah was sitting on a footstool close to Mr. Carrisford's knee, and listening to some of the many things he felt it necessary to try to explain to her, when Ram Dass announced the visit his arrival. Sarah rose involuntarily and became rather pale, but Mr. Carrisford saw that she stood quietly, and showed none of the ordinary signs of child terror. Miss Minchin entered the room with a sternly dignified manner. She was correctly and well dressed, and rigidly polite. I am sorry to disturb Mr. Carrisford, she said, but I have explanations to make. I am Miss Minchin, the proprietress of the young lady's seminary, next door. The Indian gentleman looked at her for a moment in silent scrutiny. He was a man who had naturally a rather hot temper, and he did not wish it to get too much the better of him. So you are Miss Minchin, he said. I am so. In that case, the Indian gentleman replied, you have arrived at the right time. My solicitor, Mr. Carr Michael, was just on the point of going to see you. Mr. Carr Michael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr. Carrisford in amazement. You're solicitor, she said. I do not understand. I have come here as a matter of duty. I have just discovered that you have been intruded upon by the forwardness of one of my pupils, a charity pupil. I came to explain that she intruded without my knowledge. She turned upon Sarah. Go home at once, she commanded indignantly. You shall be severely punished. Go home at once. The Indian gentleman drew Sarah to his side and patted her hand. She is not going. Miss Minchin felt rather as if she must be losing her senses. Not going, she repeated. No, said Mr. Carrisford. She is not going home. If you give your house that name, her home for the future will be with me. Miss Minchin fell back in amazed indignation. With you? With you, sir? What does this mean? Kindly explain the matter, Carmichael, said the Indian gentleman, and get it over as quickly as possible. And he made Sarah sit down again, and held her hands in his, which was another trick of her pappers. Then Mr. Carmichael explained, in the quiet, level-toned, steady manner of a man who knew his subject, and all its legal significance, which was a thing Miss Minchin understood as a businesswoman, and did not enjoy. Mr. Carrisford, madam, he said, was an intimate friend of the late Captain Crue. He was his partner in certain large investments. The fortune which Captain Crue supposed he had lost has been recovered, and is now in Mr. Carrisford's hands. The fortune, cried Miss Minchin, and she really lost colour as she uttered the exclamation. Sarah's fortune? It will be Sarah's fortune, replied Mr. Carmichael rather coldly. It is Sarah's fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it enormously. The diamond mines have retrieved themselves. The diamond mines, Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, nothing so horrible she felt had ever happened to her since she was born. The diamond mines, Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile. There are not many princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity pupil Sarah Crue will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her for nearly two years. He has found her at last, and he will keep her. After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained matters to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to make it quite clear to her that Sarah's future was an assured one, and that what had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold, also that she had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend. Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was silly enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not help seeing she had lost through her worldly folly. He found her under my care, she protested. I have done everything for her, but for me she should have starved in the streets. Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper. As to starving in the streets, he said, she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic. Captain Crue left her in my charge, Miss Minchin argued. She must return to it until she is of age. She can be a panel-border again. She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf. Come, come, Miss Minchin, Mr. Carmichael interposed. The law will do nothing of the sort. If Sarah herself wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it, but that rests with Sarah. Then, said Miss Minchin, I appeal to Sarah. I have not spoiled you, perhaps, she said awkwardly to the little girl, but you know that your papa was pleased with your progress, and— I have always been fond of you. Sarah's green gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear look Miss Minchin particularly disliked. Have you, Miss Minchin? she said. I did not know that. Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up. You ought to have known it, said she, but children, unfortunately, never know what is best for them. Amelia and I always said you were the cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your poor papa and come home with me? Sarah took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody, and was in danger of being turned into the street. She was thinking of the cold, hungry hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchizedek and the Attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the face. You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin, she said. You know quite well. A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin's hard, angry face. You will never see your companions again, she began. I will see that Ermengard and Lottie are kept away. Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness. Excuse me, he said. She will see any one she wishes to see. The parents of Miss Cru's fellow pupils are not likely to refuse her invitations to visit her at her guardian's house. Mr. Carrisford will attend to that. It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse than the eccentric bachelor uncle who might have a peppery temper and be easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid mind could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow their children to remain friends with a little heiress of diamond minds. And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how unhappy Sarah Crue had been made, many unpleasant things might happen. You have not undertaken an easy charge, she said to the Indian gentleman as she turned to leave the room. You will discover that very soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose, to Sarah, that you feel now that you are a princess again. Sarah looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her ped-fancy might not be easy for strangers, even nice ones, to understand at first. I tried not to be anything else, she answered in a low voice. Even when I was coldest and hungriest, I tried not to be. Now it will not be necessary to try, said Miss Minchin acidly, as Ram Dass alarmed her out of the room. She returned home and, going to her sitting-room, centered once for Miss Amelia. She sat closeted with her all the rest of the afternoon, and it must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one bad quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears and mopped her eyes a good deal. One of her unfortunate remarks almost caused her sister to snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual manner. I am not as clever as you, sister, she said, and I am always afraid to say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were not so timid, it would be better for the school and for both of us. I must say I have often thought it would have been better if you had been less severe on Sarah Crue, and had seen that she was decently dressed and more comfortable. I know she was worked too hard for a child of her age, and I know she was only half-fed. How dare you say such a thing, exclaimed Miss Minchin. I don't know how I dare, Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of reckless courage. But now I have begun, I may as well finish whatever happens to me. The child was a clever child and a good child, and she would have paid you for any kindness you had shown her, but you didn't show her any. The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always disliked her for that reason. She used to see through us both. Amelia! gasped for infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her ears and knock her cap off, as she had often done to Becky. But Miss Amelia's disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to care what occurred next. She did! She did! She cried. She saw through us both. She saw that you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from her. Though she behaved herself like a little princess, even when she was a beggar, she did! She did! Like a little princess! And her hysterics got the better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and cry both at once, and rock herself backward and forward. And now you've lost her, she cried wildly, and some other school will get her and her money, and if she were like any other child, she'd tell how she'd been treated, and all our pupils will be taken away, and we should be ruined. And it serves us right, but it serves you right more than it does me, for you are a hard woman, Maria Minchin, you are a hard, selfish, worldly woman. And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical chokes and gurgles, that her sister was obliged to go to her and apply sorts and salvolatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her indignation at her audacity. And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin actually began to stand a little in awe of a sister who, while she looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, and might consequently break out and speak truths people did not want to hear. That evening, when the pupils were gathered together before the fire in the schoolroom, as was their custom before going to bed, Bermond Guard came in with a letter in her hand, and a queer expression on her round face. It was queer, because, while it was an expression of delighted excitement, it was combined with such amazement as seemed to belong to a kind of shock just received. What is the matter? cried two or three voices at once. Is it anything to do with the row that has been going on? said Lavinia eagerly. There has been such a row in Miss Minchin's room, Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics, and has had to go to bed. Bermond Guard answered them slowly as if she were half stunned. I've just had this letter from Sarah, she said, holding it out to let them see what a long letter it was. From Sarah? Every voice joined in that exclamation. Where is she? almost shrieked Jesse. Next door, said Bermond Guard, with the Indian gentleman. Where? Where? Has she been sent away? Does Miss Minchin know? Was the row about that? Why did she write? Tell us, tell us! There was a perfect babble, and Lottie began to cry plaintively. Bermond Guard answered them slowly, as if she were half plunged out into what, at the moment, seemed the most important and self-explaining thing. There were diamond mines, she said stoutly. There were. Open mouths and open eyes confronted her. They were real, she hurried on. It was all a mistake about them. Something happened for a time, and Mr. Karisford thought they were ruined. Who is Mr. Karisford? shouted Jesse. The Indian gentleman. And Captain Crew thought so too, and he died, and Mr. Karisford had brain fever and ran away, and he almost died. And he did not know where Sarah was. And it turned out that there were millions and millions of diamonds in the mines, and half of them belonged to Sarah. And they belonged to her when she was living in the attic, with no one but Melchizedek for a friend, and the cook ordering her about. And Mr. Karisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his house, and she will never come back. And she will be more a princess than she ever was, a hundred and fifty thousand times more. And I am going to see her tomorrow afternoon. There! Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar after this. And though she heard the noise, she did not try. She was not in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room, while Miss Amelia was weeping in bed. She knew that the news had penetrated the walls in some mysterious manner, and that every servant and every child would go to bed talking about it. So until almost midnight, the entire seminary, realizing somehow that all rules were laid aside, crowded around Ermengard in the schoolroom, and heard, read and reread the letter containing a story which was quite as wonderful as any Sarah herself had ever invented, and which had the amazing charm of having happened to Sarah herself, and the mystic Indian gentleman in the very next house. Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep upstairs earlier than usual. She wanted to get away from people, and go and look at the little magic room once more. She did not know what would happen to it. It was not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin. It would be taken away, and the attic would be bare and empty again. Glad as she was for Sarah's sake, she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump in her throat, and tears blurring her sight. There would be no fire to-night, had no rosy lamp, no supper, and no princess sitting in the glow, reading or telling stories. No princess. She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open, and then she broke into a low cry. The lamp was flushing the room, the fire was blazing, the supper was waiting, and Ram Dass was standing, smiling into a startled face. Mrs. Aib remembered, he said. She told the Saib all. She wished you to know the good fortune which has befallen her. Behold a letter on the tray. She has written. She did not wish that you should go to sleep unhappy. The Saib commands you to come to him to-morrow. You are to be the attendant of Mrs. Aib. To-night I take these things back over the roof. And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salam, and slipped through the skylight with an agile silentness of movement, which showed Becky how easily he had done it before. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September 2007 Chapter 19 Anne Never had such joy reigned in the nursery of the large family. Never had they dreamed of such delights as resulted from an intimate acquaintance with the little girl who was not a beggar. The mere fact of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession. Everybody wanted to be told over and over again the things which had happened to her. When one was sitting by a warm fire in a big, glowing room, it was quite delightful to hear how cold it could be in an attic. It must be admitted that the attic was rather delighted in, and that its coldness and bareness quite sank into insignificance when Melchizedek was remembered, and one heard about the sparrows and things one could see if one climbed on the table and stuck one's head and shoulders out of the skylight. Of course, the thing loved best was the story of the banquet and the dream which was true. Sarah told it for the first time the day after she had been found. Several members of the large family came to take tea with her, and as they sat or curled up on the hearth rug, she told the story in her own way, and the Indian gentleman listened and watched her. When she had finished she looked up at him and put her hand on his knee. That is my part, she said. Now won't you tell your part of it, Uncle Tom? He had asked her to call him always Uncle Tom. I don't know your part yet, and it must be beautiful. So he told them how, when he sat alone, ill, dull, and irritable, Ram Dass had tried to distract him by describing the passers-by, and there was one child who passed oftener than anyone else. He had begun to be interested in her, partly perhaps because he was thinking a great deal of a little girl, and partly because Ram Dass had been able to relate the incident of his visit to the attic in Chase of the Monkey. He had described its cheerless look, and the bearing of the child, who seemed as if she was not of the class of those who had treated as drudges and servants. Bit by bit Ram Dass had made discoveries concerning the wretchedness of her life. He had found out how easy a matter it was to climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and this fact had been the beginning of all that followed. Sa'ib, he had said one day, I could cross the slates and make the child a fire when she is out on some errand. When she returned, wet and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it. The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Karris with sad face had lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been so filled with rapture that he had enlarged upon it, and explained to his master how simple it would be to accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike pleasure and invention, and the preparations for the carrying out of the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have dragged wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had kept watch, all his packages being in readiness in the attic which was his own, and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as interested as himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when the banquet had come to its disastrous conclusion. He had been sure of the profoundness of Sarah's weary sleep, and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept into the room while his companion remained outside and handed the things to him. When Sarah had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had closed the lantern-slide and named flat upon the floor. These and many other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand questions. I am so glad, Sarah said, I am so glad it was you who were my friend. There were never such friends as these two became. Somehow they seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. The Indian gentleman had never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sarah. In a month's time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a new man. He was always amused and interested, and he began to find an actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for Sarah. There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and it was one of his pleasures to invent things to surprise her. She found beautiful new flowers growing in her room, whimsical little gifts tucked under pillows, and once, as they sat together in the evening, they heard the scratch of a heavy pour on the door, and when Sarah went to find out what it was, there stood a great dog, a splendid Russian borehound, with a grand silver and gold collar bearing an inscription. I am Boris, it read, I serve the Princess Sarah. There was nothing the Indian gentleman loved more than the recollection of the little princess in rags and tatters. The afternoons in which the large family, or erm and garden lotty, gathered to rejoice together were very delightful. But the hours when Sarah and the Indian gentlemen sat alone and read or talked had a special charm of their own. During their passing many interesting things occurred. One evening Mr. Harrisford, looking up from his book, noticed that his companion had not stirred for some time, but sat gazing into the fire. What are you supposing, Sarah? he asked. Sarah looked up with a bright color on her cheek. I was supposing, she said. I was remembering that hungry day and a child I saw. But there were a great many hungry days, said the Indian gentleman, with a rather sad tone in his voice. Which hungry day was it? I forgot you didn't know, said Sarah. It was the day the dream came true. Then she told him the story of the bun shop and the four pence she picked up out of the sloppy mud, and the child who was hungrier than herself. She told it quite simply, and in as few words as possible, but somehow the Indian gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes with his hand and look down at the carpet. And I was supposing a kind of plan, she said, when she had finished. I was thinking I should like to do something. What is it? said Mr. Karris, but in a low tone. You may do anything you like, Princess. I was wondering, rather hesitated, Sarah. You know, you say I have so much money. I was wondering if I could go to see the bun woman and tell her that if, when hungry children, particularly on those dreadful days, come and sit on the steps, or look in at the window, she would just call them in and give them something to eat. She might send the bills to me. Could I do that? You shall do it tomorrow morning, said the Indian gentleman. Thank you, said Sarah. You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one cannot even pretend it away. Yes, yes, my dear, said the Indian gentleman. Yes, yes, it must be. Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and only remember you are a princess. Yes, said Sarah, smiling, and I can give buns and bread to the populace. And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian gentleman—he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes—drew her small dark head down on his knee and stroked her hair. The next morning, Miss Minchin, in looking out of her window, saw the things she perhaps least enjoyed seeing. The Indian gentleman's carriage, with its tall horses, drew up before the door of the next house, and its owner and a little figure, warm with soft, rich furs, descended the steps to get into it. The little figure was a familiar one, and reminded Miss Minchin of days in the past. It was followed by another as familiar, the sight of which she found very irritating. It was Becky, who, in the character of delighted attendant, always accompanied her young mistress to the carriage, carrying wraps and belongings. Already Becky had a pink, round face. A little later the carriage drew up before the door of the baker's shop, and its occupants got out, oddly enough, just as the bun woman was putting a tray of smoking hot buns into the window. When Sarah entered the shop, the woman turned and looked at her, and, leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she looked at Sarah very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted up. I'm sure that I remember you, Miss, she said, and yet— Yes, said Sarah, once you gave me six buns for four pence, and— And you gave five of them to a beggar child! The woman broke in on her. I've always remembered it. I couldn't make it out at first. She turned round to the Indian gentleman and spoke her next words to him. I beg your pardon, sir, but there's not many young people that notice a hungry face in that way, and I've thought of it many a time. Excuse the liberty, Miss, to Sarah, but you look rosier and, well, better than you did that—that. I am better, thank you, said Sarah, and I am much happier, and I have come to ask you to do something for me. Me, Miss, exclaimed the bun woman, smiling cheerfully, why bless you, yes, Miss, what can I do? And then Sarah, leaning on the counter, made her little proposal concerning the dreadful days and the hungry waifs and the buns. The woman watched her and listened with an astonished face. Why bless me, she said again, when she had heard it all. It'll be a pleasure to me to do it. I'm a working woman myself, and cannot afford to do much on my own account, and there's sights of trouble on every side, but if you'll excuse me, I'm bound to say I've given away many a bit of bread since that wet afternoon, just along a thinking of you, and how wet and cold you was, and how hungry you looked, and yet you gave away your hot buns as if you were a princess. The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sarah smiled a little too, remembering what she had said to herself when she put the buns down on the ravenous child's ragged lap. She looked so hungry, she said. She was even hungry than I was. She was starving, said the woman. Many's the time she's told me of its sins. How she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was a terror at her poor young inscience. Oh, have you seen her since then? exclaimed Sarah. Do you know where she is? Yes, I do, answered the woman, smiling more good-naturedly than ever, while she's in that there-back room, Miss, and has been for a month. And a decent, well-meaning girl she's going to turn out, and such a help to be in the shop, in the kitchen, as you'd scarce believe no one how she's lived. She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke, and the next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter, and actually it was the beggar child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage, and the wild look had gone from her eyes. She knew Sarah in an instant, and stood and looked at her as if she could never look enough. You see, said the woman, I told her to come when she was hungry, and when she'd come I'd give her odd jobs to do, and I found she was willing, and somehow I got to like her, and the end of it was I've given her a place and a home, and she helps me, and behaves well, and is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name's Anne. She has no other. The children stood and looked at each other for a few minutes, and then Sarah took her hand out of her muff, and held it out across the counter, and Anne took it, and they looked straight into each other's eyes. I am so glad, Sarah said, and I've just thought of something. Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you be the one to give the buns and bread to the children. Perhaps you would like to do it, because you know what it is to be hungry too. Yes, Miss, said the girl. And somehow Sarah felt as if she understood her, though she said so little and only stood still and looked and looked after her as she went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and they got into the carriage and drove away. End of Chapter Nineteen. End of A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson-Bernet.