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Sara Crewe Or What Happened At Miss Minchin’s By Frances Hodgson Burnett

12 Temmuz 2007

Sara Crewe Or What Happened At Miss Minchin’s By Frances Hodgson Burnett

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London.

Her home was a large, dull, tall one, in a large,

dull square, where all the houses were alike,

and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the

door-knockers made the same heavy sound, and

on still days–and nearly all the days were still–

seemed to resound through the entire row in which

the knock was knocked. On Miss Minchin’s door there

was a brass plate. On the brass plate there was

inscribed in black letters,

Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary For Young Ladies

Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house

without reading that door-plate and reflecting upon it.

By the time she was twelve, she had decided that

all her trouble arose because, in the first place,

she was not “Select,” and in the second she was not

a “Young Lady.” When she was eight years old,

she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a pupil,

and left with her. Her papa had brought her all

the way from India. Her mamma had died when she

was a baby, and her papa had kept her with him as

long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate

was making her very delicate, he had brought her to

England and left her with Miss Minchin, to be part

of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara, who

had always been a sharp little child, who remembered

things, recollected hearing him say that he had

not a relative in the world whom he knew of, and

so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school,

and he had heard Miss Minchin’s establishment

spoken of very highly. The same day, he took Sara

out and bought her a great many beautiful clothes–

clothes so grand and rich that only a very young

and inexperienced man would have bought them for

a mite of a child who was to be brought up in a

boarding-school. But the fact was that he was a rash,

innocent young man, and very sad at the thought of

parting with his little girl, who was all he had left

to remind him of her beautiful mother, whom he had

dearly loved. And he wished her to have everything

the most fortunate little girl could have; and so,

when the polite saleswomen in the shops said,

“Here is our very latest thing in hats, the plumes

are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady

Diana Sinclair yesterday,” he immediately bought

what was offered to him, and paid whatever was asked.

The consequence was that Sara had a most

extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were silk

and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and

bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her

small undergarments were adorned with real lace,

and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s

with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed

quite as grandly as herself, too.

Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some money

and went away, and for several days Sara would

neither touch the doll, nor her breakfast, nor her

dinner, nor her tea, and would do nothing but

crouch in a small corner by the window and cry.

She cried so much, indeed, that she made herself ill.

She was a queer little child, with old-fashioned

ways and strong feelings, and she had adored

her papa, and could not be made to think that

India and an interesting bungalow were not

better for her than London and Miss Minchin’s

Select Seminary. The instant she had entered

the house, she had begun promptly to hate Miss

Minchin, and to think little of Miss Amelia

Minchin, who was smooth and dumpy, and lisped,

and was evidently afraid of her older sister.

Miss Minchin was tall, and had large, cold, fishy

eyes, and large, cold hands, which seemed fishy,

too, because they were damp and made chills run

down Sara’s back when they touched her, as

Miss Minchin pushed her hair off her forehead

and said:

“A most beautiful and promising little girl,

Captain Crewe. She will be a favorite pupil;

quite a favorite pupil, I see.”

For the first year she was a favorite pupil;

at least she was indulged a great deal more than

was good for her. And when the Select Seminary

went walking, two by two, she was always decked

out in her grandest clothes, and led by the hand

at the head of the genteel procession, by Miss

Minchin herself. And when the parents of any

of the pupils came, she was always dressed and

called into the parlor with her doll; and she used

to hear Miss Minchin say that her father was a

distinguished Indian officer, and she would be

heiress to a great fortune. That her father had

inherited a great deal of money, Sara had heard

before; and also that some day it would be

hers, and that he would not remain long in

the army, but would come to live in London.

And every time a letter came, she hoped it would

say he was coming, and they were to live together again.

But about the middle of the third year a letter

came bringing very different news. Because he

was not a business man himself, her papa had

given his affairs into the hands of a friend

he trusted. The friend had deceived and robbed him.

All the money was gone, no one knew exactly where,

and the shock was so great to the poor, rash young

officer, that, being attacked by jungle fever

shortly afterward, he had no strength to rally,

and so died, leaving Sara, with no one to take care

of her.

Miss Minchin’s cold and fishy eyes had never

looked so cold and fishy as they did when Sara

went into the parlor, on being sent for, a few days

after the letter was received.

No one had said anything to the child about

mourning, so, in her old-fashioned way, she had

decided to find a black dress for herself, and had

picked out a black velvet she had outgrown, and

came into the room in it, looking the queerest little

figure in the world, and a sad little figure too.

The dress was too short and too tight, her face

was white, her eyes had dark rings around them,

and her doll, wrapped in a piece of old black

crape, was held under her arm. She was not a

pretty child. She was thin, and had a weird,

interesting little face, short black hair, and very

large, green-gray eyes fringed all around with

heavy black lashes.

I am the ugliest child in the school,” she had

said once, after staring at herself in the glass for

some minutes.

But there had been a clever, good-natured little

French teacher who had said to the music-master:

“Zat leetle Crewe. Vat a child! A so ogly beauty!

Ze so large eyes! ze so little spirituelle face.

Waid till she grow up. You shall see!”

This morning, however, in the tight, small

black frock, she looked thinner and odder than

ever, and her eyes were fixed on Miss Minchin

with a queer steadiness as she slowly advanced

into the parlor, clutching her doll.

“Put your doll down!” said Miss Minchin.

“No,” said the child, I won’t put her down;

I want her with me. She is all I have. She has

stayed with me all the time since my papa died.”

She had never been an obedient child. She had

had her own way ever since she was born, and there

was about her an air of silent determination under

which Miss Minchin had always felt secretly uncomfortable.

And that lady felt even now that perhaps it would be

as well not to insist on her point. So she looked

at her as severely as possible.

“You will have no time for dolls in future,”

she said; “you will have to work and improve

yourself, and make yourself useful.”

Sara kept the big odd eyes fixed on her teacher

and said nothing.

“Everything will be very different now,” Miss

Minchin went on. “I sent for you to talk to

you and make you understand. Your father

is dead. You have no friends. You have

no money. You have no home and no one to take

care of you.”

The little pale olive face twitched nervously,

but the green-gray eyes did not move from Miss

Minchin’s, and still Sara said nothing.

“What are you staring at?” demanded Miss

Minchin sharply. “Are you so stupid you don’t

understand what I mean? 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.”

The truth was, Miss Minchin was in her worst mood.

To be suddenly deprived of a large sum of money

yearly and a show pupil, and to find herself

with a little beggar on her hands, was more than

she could bear with any degree of calmness.

“Now listen to me,” she went on, “and remember

what I say. If you work hard and prepare to make

yourself useful in a few years, I shall let you

stay here. You are only a child, but you are a

sharp child, and you pick up things almost

without being taught. You speak French very well,

and in a year or so you can begin to help with the

younger pupils. By the time you are fifteen you

ought to be able to do that much at least.”

“I can speak French better than you, now,” said

Sara; “I always spoke it with my papa in India.”

Which was not at all polite, but was painfully true;

because Miss Minchin could not speak French at all,

and, indeed, was not in the least a clever person.

But she was a hard, grasping business woman; and,

after the first shock of disappointment, had seen

that at very little expense to herself she might

prepare this clever, determined child to be very

useful to her and save her the necessity of paying

large salaries to teachers of languages.

“Don’t be impudent, or you will be punished,” she said.

“You will have to improve your manners if you expect

to earn your bread. You are not a parlor boarder now.

Remember that if you don’t please me, and I send you

away, you have no home but the street. You can go now.”

Sara turned away.

“Stay,” commanded Miss Minchin, “don’t you intend

to thank me?”

Sara turned toward her. The nervous twitch

was to be seen again in her face, and she seemed

to be trying to control it.

“What for?” she said.

For my kindness to you,” replied Miss Minchin.

“For my kindness in giving you a home.”

Sara went two or three steps nearer to her.

Her thin little chest was heaving up and down,

and she spoke in a strange, unchildish voice.

“You are not kind,” she said. “You are not kind.”

And she turned again and went out of the room,

leaving Miss Minchin staring after her strange,

small figure in stony anger.

The child walked up the staircase, holding tightly

to her doll; she meant to go to her bedroom,

but at the door she was met by Miss Amelia.

“You are not to go in there,” she said. “That is

not your room now.”

“Where is my room? ” asked Sara.

“You are to sleep in the attic next to the cook.”

Sara walked on. She mounted two flights more,

and reached the door of the attic room, opened

it and went in, shutting it behind her. She stood

against it and looked about her. The room was

slanting-roofed and whitewashed; there was a

rusty grate, an iron bedstead, and some odd

articles of furniture, sent up from better rooms

below, where they had been used until they were

considered to be worn out. Under the skylight

in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong

piece of dull gray sky, there was a battered

old red footstool.

Sara went to it and sat down. She was a queer child,

as I have said before, and quite unlike other children.

She seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid her

doll, 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 crape,

not saying one word, not making one sound.

From that day her life changed entirely. Sometimes she

used to feel as if it must be another life altogether,

the life of some other child. She was a little

drudge and outcast; she was given her lessons at

odd times and expected to learn without being taught;

she was sent on errands by Miss Minchin, Miss Amelia

and the cook. Nobody took any notice of her except

when they ordered her about. She was often kept busy

all day and then sent into the deserted school-room

with a pile of books to learn her lessons or practise

at night. She had never been intimate with the

other pupils, and soon she became so shabby that,

taking her queer clothes together with her queer

little ways, they began to look upon her as a being

of another world than their own. The fact was that,

as a rule, Miss Minchin’s pupils were rather dull,

matter-of-fact young people, accustomed to being rich

and comfortable; and Sara, with her elfish cleverness,

her desolate life, and her odd habit of fixing her

eyes upon them and staring them out of countenance,

was too much for them.

“She always looks as if she was finding you out,”

said one girl, who was sly and given to making mischief.

“I am,” said Sara promptly, when she heard of it.

“That’s what I look at them for. I like to know

about people. I think them over afterward.”

She never made any mischief herself or interfered

with any one. She talked very little, did as she

was told, and thought a great deal. Nobody knew,

and in fact nobody cared, whether she was unhappy

or happy, unless, perhaps, it was Emily, who lived

in the attic and slept on the iron bedstead at night.

Sara thought Emily understood her feelings, though

she was only wax and had a habit of staring herself.

Sara used to talk to her at night.

“You are the only friend I have in the world,”

she would say to her. “Why don’t you say something?

Why don’t you speak? Sometimes I am sure you could,

if you would try. It ought to make you try,

to know you are the only thing I have. If I were

you, I should try. Why don’t you try?”

It really was a very strange feeling she had

about Emily. It arose from her being so desolate.

She did not like to own to herself that her

only friend, her only companion, could feel and

hear nothing. She wanted to believe, or to pretend

to believe, that Emily understood and sympathized

with her, that she heard her even though she did

not speak in answer. She used to put her in a

chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on the old

red footstool, and stare at her and think and

pretend about her until her own eyes would grow

large with something which was almost like fear,

particularly at night, when the garret was so still,

when the only sound that was to be heard was the

occasional squeak and scurry of rats in the wainscot.

There were rat-holes in the garret, and Sara

detested rats, and was always glad Emily was with

her when she heard their hateful squeak and rush

and scratching. One of her “pretends” was that

Emily was a kind of good witch and could protect her.

Poor little Sara! everything was “pretend” with her.

She had a strong imagination; there was almost more

imagination than there was Sara, and her whole forlorn,

uncared-for child-life was made up of imaginings.

She imagined and pretended things until she almost

believed them, and she would scarcely have been surprised

at any remarkable thing that could have happened.

So she insisted to herself that Emily understood all

about her troubles and was really her friend.

“As to answering,” she used to say, “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 not to say a word–

just to look at them and think. Miss Minchin

turns pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia

looks frightened, so do the girls. They 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’s 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, Sara 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; and, when she

came in wet and hungry, had been sent out again

because nobody chose to remember that she was

only a child, and that her thin little legs might be

tired, and her small body, clad in its forlorn, too

small finery, all too short and too tight, 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 moods, and

when she had seen the girls sneering at her among

themselves and making fun of her poor, outgrown

clothes–then Sara did not find Emily quite all

that her sore, proud, desolate little heart needed

as the doll sat in her little old chair and stared.

One of these nights, when she came up to the

garret cold, hungry, tired, and with a tempest

raging in her small breast, Emily’s stare seemed

so vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so limp and

inexpressive, that Sara lost all control over herself.

“I shall die presently!” she said at first.

Emily 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

to-day, and they have done nothing but scold me

from morning until night. And because I could

not find that last thing they 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

wax 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.

You are nothing but a doll!” she cried.

“Nothing but a doll-doll-doll! You care for nothing.

You are stuffed with sawdust. You never had a heart.

Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a doll!”

Emily lay upon 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 still calm, even dignified.

Sara hid her face on her arms and sobbed. Some rats

in the wall began to fight and bite each other,

and squeak and scramble. But, as I have already

intimated, Sara was not in the habit of crying.

After a while she stopped, and when she stopped

she looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her

around the side of one ankle, and actually with a

kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked

her up. Remorse overtook her.

“You can’t help being a doll,” she said, with a

resigned sigh, “any more than those girls downstairs

can help not having any sense. We are not all alike.

Perhaps you do your sawdust best.”

None of Miss Minchin’s young ladies were very

remarkable for being brilliant; they were select,

but some of them were very dull, and some of them

were fond of applying themselves to their lessons.

Sara, who snatched her lessons at all sorts of

untimely hours from tattered and discarded books,

and who had a hungry craving for everything readable,

was often severe upon them in her small mind.

They had books they never read; she had no books

at all. If she had always had something to read,

she would not have been so lonely. She liked

romances and history and poetry; she would

read anything. There was a sentimental housemaid

in the establishment who bought the weekly penny

papers, and subscribed to a circulating library,

from which she got greasy volumes containing stories

of marquises and dukes who invariably fell in love

with orange-girls and gypsies and servant-maids,

and made them the proud brides of coronets; and

Sara often did parts of this maid’s work so that

she might earn the privilege of reading these

romantic histories. There was also a fat,

dull pupil, whose name was Ermengarde St. John,

who was one of her resources. Ermengarde had an

intellectual father, who, in his despairing desire

to encourage his daughter, constantly sent her

valuable and interesting books, which were a

continual source of grief to her. Sara had once

actually found her crying over a big package of them.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked her,

perhaps rather disdainfully.

And it is just possible she would not have

spoken to her, if she had not seen the books.

The sight of books always gave Sara a hungry feeling,

and she could not help drawing near to them if

only to read their titles.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked.

“My papa has sent me some more books,”

answered Ermengarde woefully, “and he expects

me to read them.”

“Don’t you like reading?” said Sara.

“I hate it!” replied Miss Ermengarde St. John.

“And he will ask me questions when he sees me:

he will want to know how much I remember; how

would you like to have to read all those?”

“I’d like it better than anything else in the world,”

said Sara.

Ermengarde wiped her eyes to look at such a prodigy.

“Oh, gracious!” she exclaimed.

Sara returned the look with interest. A sudden plan

formed itself in her sharp mind.

“Look here!” she said. “If you’ll lend me those books,

I’ll read them and tell you everything that’s in them

afterward, and I’ll tell it to you so that you will

remember it. I know I can. The A B C children always

remember what I tell them.”

“Oh, goodness!” said Ermengarde. “Do you

think you could?”

“I know I could,” answered Sara. “I like to read,

and I always remember. I’ll take care of the books,

too; they will look just as new as they do now,

when I give them back to you.”

Ermengarde put her handkerchief in her pocket.

“If you’ll do that,” she said, “and if you’ll make

me remember, I’ll give you–I’ll give you some money.”

“I don’t want your money,” said Sara. “I want

your books–I want them.” And her eyes grew

big and queer, and her chest heaved once.

“Take them, then,” said Ermengarde; “I wish

I wanted them, but I am not clever, and my father

is, and he thinks I ought to be.”

Sara picked up the books and marched off with them.

But when she was at the door, she stopped and turned around.

“What are you going to tell your father?” she asked.

“Oh,” said Ermengarde, “he needn’t know;

he’ll think I’ve read them.”

Sara looked down at the books; her heart really began

to beat fast.

“I won’t do it,” she said rather slowly, “if you are

going to tell him lies about it–I don’t like lies.

Why can’t you tell him I read them and then told you

about them?”

“But he wants me to read them,” said Ermengarde.

“He wants you to know what is in them,” said Sara;

and if I can tell it to you in an easy way and make

you remember, I should think he would like that.”

“He would like it better if I read them myself,”

replied Ermengarde.

“He will like it, I dare say, if you learn anything in

any way,” said Sara. “I should, if I were your father.”

And though this was not a flattering way of

stating the case, Ermengarde was obliged to

admit it was true, and, after a little more

argument, gave in. And so she used afterward

always to hand over her books to Sara, and Sara

would carry them to her garret and devour them;

and after she had read each volume, she would return

it and tell Ermengarde about it in a way of her own.

She had a gift for making things interesting.

Her imagination helped her to make everything

rather like a story, and she managed this matter

so well that Miss St. John gained more information

from her books than she would have gained if she

had read them three times over by her poor

stupid little self. When Sara sat down by her

and began to tell some story of travel or history,

she made the travellers and historical people

seem real; and Ermengarde used to sit and regard

her dramatic gesticulations, her thin little flushed

cheeks, and her shining, odd eyes with amazement.

“It sounds nicer than it seems in the book,” she

would say. “I never cared about Mary, Queen

of Scots, before, and I always hated the French

Revolution, but you make it seem like a story.”

“It is a story,” Sara would answer. “They are

all stories. Everything is a story–everything in

this world. You are a story–I am a story–Miss Minchin

is a story. You can make a story out of anything.”

“I can’t,” said Ermengarde.

Sara stared at her a minute reflectively.

“No,” she said at last. “I suppose you couldn’t.

You are a little like Emily.”

“Who is Emily?”

Sara recollected herself. She knew she was

sometimes rather impolite in the candor of her

remarks, and she did not want to be impolite

to a girl who was not unkind–only stupid.

Notwithstanding all her sharp little ways she had

the sense to wish to be just to everybody. In the

hours she spent alone, she used to argue out a great

many curious questions with herself. One thing

she had decided upon was, that a person who was

clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust

or deliberately unkind to any one. Miss Minchin

was unjust and cruel, Miss Amelia was unkind

and spiteful, the cook was malicious and hasty-

tempered–they all were stupid, and made her

despise them, and she desired to be as unlike them

as possible. So she would be as polite as she

could to people who in the least deserved politeness.

“Emily is–a person–I know,” she replied.

“Do you like her?” asked Ermengarde.

“Yes, I do,” said Sara.

Ermengarde examined her queer little face and

figure again. She did look odd. She had on,

that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely

covered her knees, a brown Cloth sacque, and a

pair of olive-green stockings which Miss Minchin

had made her piece out with black ones, so that

they would be long enough to be kept on. And yet

Ermengarde was beginning slowly to admire her.

Such a forlorn, thin, neglected little thing

as that, who could read and read and remember

and tell you things so that they did not tire you

all out! A child who could speak French, and

who had learned German, no one knew how! One could

not help staring at her and feeling interested,

particularly one to whom the simplest lesson was

a trouble and a woe.

“Do you like me?” said Ermengarde, finally, at

the end of her scrutiny.

Sara hesitated one second, then she answered:

“I like you because you are not ill-natured–I

like you for letting me read your books–I like

you because you don’t make spiteful fun of me for

what I can’t help. It’s not your fault that–”

She pulled herself up quickly. She had been

going to say, “that you are stupid.”

“That what?” asked Ermengarde.

“That you can’t learn things quickly. If you

can’t, you can’t. If I can, why, I can–that’s all.”

She paused a minute, looking at the plump face

before her, and then, rather slowly, one of her

wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her.

“Perhaps,” she said, “to be able to learn things

quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a

good deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew

everything on earth, which she doesn’t, and if she

was like what she is now, she’d still be a detestable

thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of clever

people have done harm and been wicked. Look at Robespierre–”

She stopped again and examined her companion’s countenance.

“Do you remember about him?” she demanded. “I believe

you’ve forgotten.”

“Well, I don’t remember all of it,” admitted Ermengarde.

“Well,” said Sara, with courage and determination,

“I’ll tell it to you over again.”

And she plunged once more into the gory records of

the French Revolution, and told such stories of it,

and made such vivid pictures of its horrors, that

Miss St. John was afraid to go to bed afterward,

and hid her head under the blankets when she did go,

and shivered until she fell asleep. But afterward

she preserved lively recollections of the character

of Robespierre, and did not even forget Marie Antoinette

and the Princess de Lamballe.

“You know they put her head on a pike and

danced around it,” Sara had said; “and she had

beautiful blonde hair; and 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.”

Yes, it was true; to this imaginative child

everything was a story; and the more books she

read, the more imaginative she became. One of

her chief entertainments was to sit in her garret,

or walk about it, and “suppose” things. On a

cold night, when she had not had enough to eat,

she would draw the red footstool up before the

empty grate, and say in the most intense voice:

“Suppose there was a grate, wide steel grate

here, and a great glowing fire–a glowing fire–

with beds of red-hot coal and lots of little dancing,

flickering flames. Suppose there was a soft,

deep rug, and this was a comfortable chair, all

cushions and crimson velvet; and suppose I had

a crimson velvet frock on, and a deep lace collar,

like a child in a picture; and suppose all the rest

of the room was furnished in lovely colors, and

there were book-shelves full of books, which

changed by magic as soon as you had read them;

and suppose there was a little table here, with a

snow-white cover on it, and little silver dishes,

and in one there was hot, hot soup, and in another

a roast chicken, and in another some raspberry-jam

tarts with crisscross on them, and in another

some grapes; and suppose Emily could speak,

and we could sit and eat our supper, and then

talk and read; and then suppose there was a soft,

warm bed in the corner, and when we were tired

we could go to sleep, and sleep as long as we liked.”

Sometimes, after she had supposed things like

these for half an hour, she would feel almost

warm, and would creep into bed with Emily and

fall asleep with a smile on her face.

“What large, downy pillows!” she would whisper.

“What white sheets and fleecy blankets!” And she

almost forgot that her real pillows had scarcely

any feathers in them at all, and smelled musty,

and that her blankets and coverlid were thin and

full of holes.

At another time she would “suppose” she was a

princess, and then she would go about the house

with an expression on her face which was a source

of great secret annoyance to Miss Minchin, because

it seemed as if the child scarcely heard the

spiteful, insulting things said to her, or, if

she heard them, did not care for them at all.

Sometimes, while she was in the midst of some harsh

and cruel speech, Miss Minchin would find the odd,

unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like

a proud smile in them. At such times she did not

know that Sara 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, old, vulgar thing, and don’t

know any better.”

This used to please and amuse her more than

anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was,

she found comfort in it, and it was not a bad

thing for her. It really kept her from being

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, who took their tone

from their mistress, were insolent and ordered

her about, she would hold her head erect, and

reply to them sometimes in a way which made

them stare at her, it was so quaintly civil.

“I am a princess in rags and tatters,” she would

think, “but I am a princess, inside. It would be

easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth-of-

gold; 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 had everything 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.”

Once when such thoughts were passing through

her mind the look in her eyes so enraged Miss

Minchin that she flew at Sara and boxed her ears.

Sara awakened from her dream, started a little,

and then broke into a laugh.

“What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child!”

exclaimed Miss Minchin.

It took Sara a few seconds to remember she was

a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting

from the blows she had received.

“I was thinking,” she said.

“Beg my pardon immediately,” said Miss Minchin.

“I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was

rude,” said Sara; “but I won’t beg your pardon

for thinking.”

“What were you thinking?” demanded Miss Minchin.

“How dare you think? What were you thinking?

This occurred in the school-room, and all the

girls looked up from their books to listen.

It always interested them when Miss Minchin flew at

Sara, because Sara always said something queer,

and never seemed in the least 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 gravely and

quite 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 Sara, “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 picture so clearly before her eyes,

that she spoke in a manner which had an effect even

on Miss Minchin. It almost seemed for the moment

to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must

be some real power behind this candid daring.

“What!” she exclaimed, “found out what?”

“That I really was a princess,” said Sara, “and

could do anything–anything I liked.”

“Go to your room,” cried Miss Minchin breathlessly,

this instant. Leave the school-room. Attend to your

lessons, young ladies.”

Sara made a little bow.

“Excuse me for laughing, if it was impolite,”

she said, and walked out of the room, leaving

Miss Minchin in a rage and the girls whispering

over their books.

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she did

turn out to be something,” said one of them.

“Suppose she should!”

That very afternoon Sara had an opportunity

of proving to herself whether she was really a

princess or not. It was a dreadful afternoon.

For several days it had rained continuously, the

streets were chilly and sloppy; there was mud

everywhere–sticky London mud–and over

everything a pall of fog and drizzle. Of course

there were several long and tiresome errands to

be done,–there always were on days like this,–

and Sara 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 down-trodden shoes

were so wet they could not hold any more water.

Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner,

because Miss Minchin wished to punish her. She was

very hungry. She was so cold and hungry and tired

that her little face had a pinched look, and now

and then some kind-hearted person passing her in

the crowded street glanced at her with sympathy.

But she did not know that. She hurried on,

trying to comfort herself in that queer way of

hers by pretending and “supposing,”–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. “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 baker’s 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 should eat them

all without stopping.”

Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes.

It certainly was an odd thing which happened

to Sara. She had to cross the street just as

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 and the mud,

and in looking down–just as she reached the

pavement–she saw something shining in the gutter.

A piece of silver–a tiny piece trodden upon by

many feet, but still with spirit enough 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 is true!”

And then, if you will believe me, she looked

straight before her at the shop directly facing her.

And it was a baker’s, and a cheerful, stout,

motherly woman, with rosy cheeks, was just

putting into the window a tray of delicious hot

buns,–large, plump, shiny buns, with currants in them.

It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds–the

shock and the sight of the buns and the delightful

odors of warm bread floating up through the baker’s

cellar-window.

She knew that 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 streams of passing people

who crowded and jostled each other all through

the day.

“But I’ll go and ask the baker’s woman if she

has lost a piece of money,” she said to herself,

rather faintly.

So she crossed the pavement and put her wet

foot on the step of the shop; and as she did so

she saw something which made her stop.

It was a little figure more forlorn than her own

–a little figure which was not much more than a

bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red and

muddy feet peeped out–only because the rags

with which the wearer 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.

Sara 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 Sara, and shuffled herself aside a little, so

as to give her more room. She was used to being

made to give room to everybody. She knew that if

a policeman chanced to see her, he would tell her

to “move on.”

Sara clutched her little four-penny piece, and

hesitated 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 jist!” she said, in a hoarse voice.

“Jist ain’t I!”

“Haven’t you had any dinner?” said Sara.

“No dinner,” more hoarsely still and with more

shuffling, “nor yet no bre’fast–nor yet no supper

–nor nothin’.”

“Since when?” asked Sara.

“Dun’no. Never got nothin’ to-day–nowhere.

I’ve axed and axed.”

Just to look at her made Sara 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.

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 delightfully. The woman was just going

to put more hot buns in the window.

“If you please,” said Sara, “have you lost fourpence–

a silver fourpence?” And she held the forlorn little

piece of money out to her.

The woman looked at it and at her–at her intense

little face and draggled, once-fine clothes.

“Bless us–no,” she answered. “Did you find it?”

“In the gutter,” said Sara.

“Keep it, then,” said the woman. “It may have

been there a week, and goodness knows who lost it.

You could never find out.”

“I know that,” said Sara, “but I thought I’d ask you.”

“Not many would,” said the woman, looking puzzled

and interested and good-natured all at once.

“Do you want to buy something?” she added,

as she saw Sara glance toward the buns.

“Four buns, if you please,” said Sara; “those

at a penny each.”

The woman went to the window and put some in a

paper bag. Sara noticed that she put in six.

“I said four, if you please,” she explained.

“I have only the fourpence.”

“I’ll throw in two for make-weight,” 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 Sara’s eyes.

“Yes,” she answered. “I am 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 child was still huddled up on the corner of

the steps. She looked frightful in her wet and

dirty rags. She was staring with a stupid look

of suffering straight before her, and Sara saw her

suddenly draw the back of her 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.

Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of

the hot buns, which had already warmed her cold

hands a little.

“See,” she said, putting the bun on the ragged lap,

“that is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not be

so hungry.”

The child started and stared up at her; then

she snatched up the bun and began to cram it

into her mouth with great wolfish bites.

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” Sara heard her say hoarsely,

in wild delight.

“Oh, my!”

Sara took out three more buns and put them down.

“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 starving London savage was still

snatching and devouring when she turned away.

She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if

she had been taught politeness–which she had not.

She was only a poor little wild animal.

“Good-bye,” said Sara.

When she reached the other side of the street

she looked back. The child had a bun in both

hands, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to

watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the

child, after another stare,–a curious, longing

stare,–jerked her shaggy head in response, and

until Sara was out of sight she did not take

another bite or even finish the one she had begun.

At that moment the baker-woman glanced 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 toward Sara’s vanishing figure.

“What did she say?” inquired the woman.

“Axed me if I was ‘ungry,” replied the hoarse voice.

“What did you say?”

“Said I was jist!”

“And then she came in and got buns and came out

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, far-away

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 blest if she shouldn’t have had a dozen.”

Then she turned to the child.

“Are you hungry, yet?” she asked.

“I’m allus ‘ungry,” was the answer; “but ’tain’t

so 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 a tiny back room. “And, look here,–

when you’re hard up for a bite of bread, you can

come here and ask for it. I’m blest if I won’t give

it to you for that young un’s sake.”

Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. It was

hot; and it was a great deal better than nothing.

She broke off small pieces and ate them slowly to

make it last longer.

“Suppose it was a magic bun,” she said, “and a bite

was as much as a whole dinner. I should be over-

eating myself if I went on like this.”

It was dark when she reached the square in which

Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary was situated; the

lamps were lighted, and in most of the windows

gleams of light were to be seen. It always

interested Sara to catch glimpses of the rooms

before the shutters were closed. She liked to

imagine things about people who sat before the

fires in the houses, or who bent over books at

the tables. There was, for instance, the Large

Family opposite. She called these people the Large

Family–not because they were large, 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 grand-mamma,

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

mamma; or they were flying to the door in the

evening to kiss their papa and dance around him

and drag off his overcoat and look for packages

in the pockets of it; or they were crowding about

the nursery windows and looking out and pushing

ach other and laughing,–in fact they were

always doing something which seemed enjoyable

and suited to the tastes of a large family.

Sara was quite attached to them, and had given

them all names out of books. She called them

the Montmorencys, when she did not call them the

Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace

cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency;

the next baby was Violet Cholmondely Montmorency;

the little boy who could just stagger, and who had

such round legs, was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency;

and then came Lilian Evangeline, Guy Clarence,

Maud Marian, Rosalind Gladys, Veronica Eustacia,

and Claude Harold Hector.

Next door to the Large Family lived the Maiden Lady,

who had a companion, and two parrots, and a King

Charles spaniel; but Sara was not so very fond of her,

because she did nothing in particular but talk to

the parrots and drive out with the spaniel. The most

interesting person of all lived next door to Miss

Minchin herself. Sara called him the Indian Gentleman.

He was an elderly gentleman who was said to have

lived in the East Indies, and to be immensely rich

and to have something the matter with his liver,–

in fact, it had been rumored that he had no liver

at all, and was much inconvenienced by the fact.

At any rate, he was very yellow and he did not look

happy; and when he went out to his carriage, he

was almost always wrapped up in shawls and

overcoats, as if he were cold. He had a native

servant who looked even colder than himself, and

he had a monkey who looked colder than the

native servant. Sara had seen the monkey sitting

on a table, in the sun, in the parlor window, and

he always wore such a mournful expression that

she sympathized with him deeply.

“I dare say,” she used sometimes to remark to

herself, “he is thinking all the time of cocoanut

trees and of swinging by his tail under a tropical sun.

He might have had a family dependent on him too,

poor thing!”

The native servant, whom she called the Lascar,

looked mournful too, but he was evidently very

faithful to his master.

“Perhaps he saved his master’s life in the Sepoy

rebellion,” she thought. “They look as if they might

have had all sorts of adventures. I wish I could

speak to the Lascar. I remember a little Hindustani.”

And one day she actually did speak to him, and his

start at the sound of his own language expressed

a great deal of surprise and delight. He was

waiting for his master to come out to the carriage,

and Sara, who was going on an errand as usual,

stopped and spoke a few words. She had a special

gift for languages and had remembered enough

Hindustani to make herself understood by him.

When his master came out, the Lascar spoke to him

quickly, and the Indian Gentleman turned and looked

at her curiously. And afterward the Lascar always

greeted her with salaams of the most profound description.

And occasionally they exchanged a few words. She learned

that it was true that the Sahib was very rich–that he

was ill–and also that he had no wife nor children,

and that England did not agree with the monkey.

“He must be as lonely as I am,” thought Sara.

“Being rich does not seem to make him happy.”

That evening, as she passed the windows, the Lascar

was closing the shutters, and she caught a glimpse of

the room inside. There was a bright fire glowing in

the grate, and the Indian Gentleman was sitting

before it, in a luxurious chair. The room was richly

furnished, and looked delightfully comfortable, but

the Indian Gentleman sat with his head resting on his

hand, and looked as lonely and unhappy as ever.

“Poor man!” said Sara; “I wonder what you are `supposing’?”

When she went into the house she met Miss Minchin

in the hall.

“Where have you wasted your time?” said

Miss Minchin. “You have been out for hours!”

“It was so wet and muddy,” Sara answered.

“It was hard to walk, because my shoes were so

bad and slipped about so.”

“Make no excuses,” said Miss Minchin, “and tell

no falsehoods.”

Sara went downstairs to the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you stay all night?” said the cook.

“Here are the things,” said Sara, and laid her

purchases on the table.

The cook looked over them, grumbling. She was in

a very bad temper indeed.

“May I have something to eat?” Sara asked

rather faintly.

“Tea’s over and done with,” was the answer.

“Did you expect me to keep it hot for you?

Sara was silent a second.

“I had no dinner,” she said, 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.”

Sara went and found the bread. It was old and

hard and dry. The cook was in too bad a humor

to give her anything to eat with it. She had just

been scolded by Miss Minchin, and it was always

safe and easy to vent her own spite on Sara.

Really it was hard for the child to climb the

three long flights of stairs leading to her garret.

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 a lump rose

in her throat and she was obliged to stop to rest.

“I can’t pretend anything more to-night,” she

said wearily to herself. “I’m sure I can’t.

I’ll eat my bread and drink some water and then go

to sleep, and perhaps a dream will come and pretend

for me. I wonder what dreams are.”

Yes, when she reached the top landing there were

tears in her eyes, and she did not feel like a

princess–only like a tired, hungry, lonely, lonely child.

“If my pap

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