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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett CHAPTER 15.
The Magic
When Sara 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.
"Poor man!" said Sara. "I wonder what you are 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
are in search of.
Suppose she proves to be quite a different child.
What steps shall I take next?"
When Sara 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," Sara 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."
Sara went in to 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 Sara was a
convenience, as usual. "Why didn't you stay all night?" she
snapped.
Sara laid her purchases on the table. "Here are the things," she said.
The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage humor 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 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."
Sara went and found the bread.
It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too vicious a humor to give
her anything to eat with it. It was always safe and easy to vent her
spite on Sara.
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 tonight 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 Ermengarde 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 Ermengarde, wrapped in her red shawl, would
warm it a little. Yes; there Ermengarde 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 Melchisedec 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 Sara arrived.
She had, in fact, on this occasion had time to become rather nervous, because
Melchisedec 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, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come.
Melchy 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 Sara. Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to
look at her. "You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you
are quite pale."
"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool.
"Oh, there's Melchisedec, poor thing. He's come to ask for his supper."
Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for her footstep.
Sara was quite sure he knew it.
He came forward with an affectionate, expectant expression as Sara 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, Melchisedec, and tell your wife
there was nothing in my pocket. I'm afraid I forgot because the cook and
Miss Minchin were so cross."
Melchisedec seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not contentedly,
back to his home. "I did not expect to see you tonight,
Ermie," Sara said.
Ermengarde hugged herself in the red shawl. "Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the
night with her old aunt," she explained. "No one else ever comes and looks into the
bedrooms after we are in bed.
I could stay here until morning if I wanted to."
She pointed toward the table under the skylight.
Sara had not looked toward it as she came in.
A number of books were piled upon it. Ermengarde's gesture was a dejected one.
"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said.
"There they are." Sara 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!
Carlyle's French Revolution.
I have SO wanted to read that!" "I haven't," said Ermengarde.
"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?" Sara stopped turning over the leaves and
looked at her with an excited flush on her cheeks.
"Look here," she cried, "if you'll 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 Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?"
"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember what I
tell them."
"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you'll do that, and
make me remember, I'll--I'll give you anything."
"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara.
"I want your books--I want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest
heaved.
"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them--but I don't.
I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."
Sara 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 Ermengarde.
"He'll think I've read them."
Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly.
"That's almost like telling lies," she said.
"And lies--well, you see, they are not only wicked--they're VULGAR.
Sometimes"--reflectively--"I've 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 read them?"
"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little discouraged by this
unexpected turn of affairs.
"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 it, I should think he
would like that."
"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful Ermengarde.
"You would if you were my father." "It's not your fault that--" began Sara.
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?"
Ermengarde asked. "That you can't learn things quickly,"
amended Sara. "If you can't, you can't.
If I can--why, I can; that's all."
She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, 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 isn't 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 detestable thing, and everybody would hate her.
Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.
Look at Robespierre--"
She stopped and examined Ermengarde'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 Ermengarde.
"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet things and wrap myself
in the coverlet and 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 jumped 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 Ermengarde'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 doubts about the
Princesse de Lamballe.
"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara explained.
"And she had beautiful floating 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."
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 Sara.
"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 Minchin could not understand why I did
my exercises so well that first morning."
Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees. "She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing
her sums 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 Ermengarde 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 Sara'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 Sara
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
tonight.
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 are on a 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 Ermengarde 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 and relate
romances.
When she comes into the attic I can't spread feasts, but I can tell stories, and
not let her know disagreeable things.
I dare say poor chatelaines had to do that in time of famine, when their lands had
been pillaged."
She was a proud, brave little chatelaine, and dispensed generously the one
hospitality she could offer--the dreams she dreamed--the visions she saw--the
imaginings which were her joy and comfort.
So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as well as
ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered if her 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, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly.
"I believe you are thinner than you used to be.
Your eyes look so big, and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your
elbow!"
Sara 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 *** eyes," said Ermengarde, 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."
"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the dark with them--because I
have 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 chanced 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. Sara, who had keen ears, suddenly turned a
little and looked up at the roof.
"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said.
"It wasn't scratchy enough." "What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled.
"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara.
"N-no," Ermengarde faltered. "Did you?"
{another ed. has "No-no,"}
"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did.
It sounded as if something was on the slates--something that dragged softly."
"What could it be?" said Ermengarde.
"Could it be--robbers?" "No," Sara 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. Sara sprang off the bed, and put out the
candle.
"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the darkness.
"She is making her cry." "Will she come in here?"
Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken.
"No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir."
It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs.
Sara 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."
"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing.
"I was 'ungry enough, but 't warn't me-- never!"
"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice.
"Picking and stealing!
Half a meat pie, indeed!" "'T warn't me," wept Becky.
"I could 'ave eat a whole un--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 Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in her slipshod
shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her door shut, and knew that she
threw herself upon her bed.
"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her pillow.
"An' I never took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her policeman."
Sara 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
Ermengarde, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed by it.
Sara was crying!
The unconquerable Sara! 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 Sara, with her new thought
growing to definite fear in her eyes.
"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe- stricken voice, "are--are--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. Sara 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."
Ermengarde gasped.
"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully. "And I never knew!"
"I didn't want you to know," Sara 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!"
Ermengarde broke in. "Your clothes are a little ***--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 Sara, 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 Ermengarde, 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 Sara.
"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
cakes and things, and he could see I had nothing."
Ermengarde gave a little jump backward.
The last sentences had recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden
inspiration. "Oh, Sara!" she cried.
"What a silly thing I am not to have thought of it!"
"Of what?" "Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, 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."
Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention
of food has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengarde's arm.
"Do you think--you COULD?" she ***.
"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door--opened it softly--put
her head out into the darkness, and listened.
Then she went back to Sara.
"The lights are out. Everybody's in bed.
I can creep--and creep--and no one will hear."
It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden light sprang
into Sara's eyes. "Ermie!" 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."
Sara went to the wall. Through it 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.
'I have something to communicate.'" Five quick knocks answered her.
"She is 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
Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron.
"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde.
"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because she is 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 Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party."
"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in Ermengarde.
"I'll go this minute!"
She was in such haste that as she tiptoed 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 Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly.
But in Sara'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 in the sloppy
streets barely passed--with the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's
eyes not yet faded--this simple, cheerful thing had 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 haste and set the table."
"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room.
"What'll we set it with?" Sara looked round the attic, too.
"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing.
That moment she saw something and pounced upon it.
It was Ermengarde'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 color.
It began to make the room look furnished directly.
"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara.
"We must pretend there is one!"
Her eye swept the bare boards 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 Sara, 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 favorite 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 has 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. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain."
"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the information.
"You must pretend it," said Sara. "If you pretend it enough, you will see
them."
"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted herself
to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired.
Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very *** 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?" Sara cried.
"What are you doing?"
Becky opened her eyes with a start. "I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered
a little sheepishly; "I was tryin' to see it like you do.
I almost did," with a hopeful grin.
"But it takes a lot o' stren'th." "Perhaps it does if you are not used to
it," said Sara, 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-stand, Becky.
Oh--and bring the soap dish for a centerpiece."
Becky handed them to her reverently. "What are they now, miss?" she inquired.
"You'd think they was made of crockery--but I know they ain't."
"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the
mug.
"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 bonbon dishes," Sara 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 light 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 Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after staring in
delight, spoke with bated breath.
"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is it the Bastille now--
or has it turned into somethin' different?" "Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara.
"Quite different.
It is a banquet hall!" "My eye, miss!" *** Becky.
"A blanket 'all!" and she turned to view the splendors about her with awed
bewilderment.
"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are given.
It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney filled with
blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers twinkling on every side."
"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under the weight of
her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of
joy.
To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self 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, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!"
"Isn't it nice?" said Sara.
"They 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 Sara.
So Sara 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 waxen
tapers.
As the things were taken out of the hamper- -the frosted cakes--the fruits--the bonbons
and the wine--the feast became a splendid thing.
"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde.
"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky. Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant
thought. "I'll tell you what, Sara," she said.
"Pretend you are a princess now and this is a royal feast."
"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we will be your maids
of honor."
"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how.
YOU be her." "Well, if you want me to," said Sara.
But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.
"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," Sara said,
"we shall forget about its 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 Ermengarde and Becky.
She was in the midst of her dream.
"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be seated 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, ho, there, minstrels! Strike up with your viols and bassoons.
Princesses," she explained rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels
to play at their feasts.
Pretend there is 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 Sara, 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!"
Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler.
Ermengarde 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 Sara at the head of the table."
She turned fiercely on Sara. "It is your doing, I know," she cried.
"Ermengarde would never have thought of such a thing.
You decorated the table, I suppose--with this rubbish."
She stamped her foot at Becky.
"Go to your attic!" she commanded, and Becky stole away, her face hidden in her
apron, her shoulders shaking. Then it was Sara's turn again.
"I will attend to you tomorrow.
You shall have neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper!"
"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said Sara, 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
Ermengarde's new books.
"And you"--to Ermengarde--"have brought your beautiful new books into this dirty
attic. Take them up and go back to bed.
You will stay there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa.
What would HE say if he knew where you are tonight?"
Something she saw in Sara'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 Sara, 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 Sara'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 tonight."
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, thrust it into Ermengarde'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
poor stumbling Ermengarde, and left Sara 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 napkins, and the
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 viols and bassoons were still.
Emily was sitting with her back against the wall, staring very hard.
Sara 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 chanced
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
Ermengarde.
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 the bed. "I can't pretend anything else--while I am
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
Melchisedec'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 cozy 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 bedclothes
were heaped upon her.
She could actually FEEL blankets, and when she put out her hand it touched something
exactly like a satin-covered eider-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 am 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 knew she never should see.
"Oh, I HAVEN'T awakened," she whispered, daring to rise on her elbow and look all
about her. "I am 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 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--and 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'm 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 are 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 flyleaf--just a few words, and they were these:
"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 Sara--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, Sara shut the door gently and drew her into the
warm, glowing midst of things which made her brain reel and her hungry senses faint.
"It's true!
It's true!" she cried. "I've touched them all.
They are as real as we are.
The Magic has come and done it, Becky, while we were asleep--the Magic that won't
let those worst things EVER quite happen."
>
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett CHAPTER 16.
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 Sara that, having found
her strange good fortune real, 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 anyone 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 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 faltered 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 Sara.
"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 Sara 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 mornin', miss," she said, "it's been here tonight, anyways,
an' 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, "an' the table was before it; an'
the lamp was there, an' the light looked rosy red; an' there was a satin cover on
your bed, an' a warm rug on the floor, an'
everythin' looked beautiful; an'"--she paused a second, and laid her hand on her
stomach tenderly--"there WAS soup an' sandwiches an' muffins--there WAS."
And, with this conviction a 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 Sara Crewe was in horrible disgrace, that Ermengarde
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 Minchin 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 Minchin did not send Sara away it
was for practical reasons of her own.
"She's growing so fast and learning such a lot, somehow," said Jessie to Lavinia,
"that she will be given classes soon, and Miss Minchin knows she will have to work
for nothing.
It was rather nasty of you, Lavvy, 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 Minchin.
I felt it my duty"--priggishly.
"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 Minchin caught them?"
"Pretending some silly thing. Ermengarde had taken up her hamper to share
with Sara 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 in attics. I wonder Miss Minchin didn't turn Sara out-
-even if she does want her for a teacher."
"If she was turned out where would she go?" inquired Jessie, a trifle anxiously.
"How do I know?" snapped Lavinia.
"She'll look rather *** 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."
Jessie 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 Sara went into the kitchen that morning the cook looked askance at her, and
so did the housemaids; 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.
Sara 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 wakened, miss--the blanket," she whispered excitedly.
"It was as real as it was last night." "So was mine," said Sara.
"It is all there now--all of it.
While I was dressing I ate some of the cold things we left."
"Oh, laws! Oh, laws!"
Becky uttered the exclamation in a sort of rapturous groan, and ducked her head over
her kettle just in time, as the cook came in from the kitchen.
Miss Minchin had expected to see in Sara, when she appeared in the schoolroom, very
much what Lavinia had expected to see.
Sara had always been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or
look 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 impudence 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 superintend its 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 the 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 disgrace," 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 Sara's eyes when she made her
perfectly respectful answer. "I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin," she
said; "I know that I am in disgrace."
"Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a fortune.
It is an impertinence. And remember you are to have no food
today."
"Yes, Miss Minchin," Sara 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
Jessie, watching Sara with her class.
"Sometimes I'm a bit frightened of her." "Ridiculous thing!" *** Lavinia.
All through the day the light was in Sara's face, and the color 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 Sara's singular
obstinate way.
She was probably determined to brave the matter out.
One thing Sara 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.
Ermengarde and Lottie would be watched with such strictness that they would not dare to
steal out of their beds again. Ermengarde 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," Sara 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 was 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
Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything matter when one's
Magic has just proved itself one's friend.
Sara'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 on 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
mantel, 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 rich colors had been fastened against the wall with fine, sharp
tacks--so sharp that they could be pressed into the wood and 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 wore
quite the air of a sofa.
Sara 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 Sara?
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
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, laws!" she gasped. "Oh, laws, miss!"
"You see," said Sara.
On this night Becky sat on a cushion upon the hearth rug and had a cup and saucer of
her own.
When Sara 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. "Laws, who does it, miss?"
"Don't let us even ASK," said Sara. "If it were not that I want to say, 'Oh,
thank you,' 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 Sara 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,
ingenious 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 Sara 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.
Sara was sent on errands in all weathers, and scolded and driven hither and thither;
she was scarcely allowed to speak to Ermengarde 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.
"Sara Crewe 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!" "Of--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 of 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--by the changes she has had to submit to.
But, upon my word, she seems as little subdued as if--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 Sara 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."
Sara 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 Sara,
quietly.
"To you?" exclaimed Miss Minchin. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know where they come from," said Sara, "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 Sara.
"Open them," she ordered. Sara 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 were even a nice hat and an umbrella.
They were all good and expensive things, and on the pocket of the coat was pinned a
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 relation's 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 *** indeed, and very uncertain, and she gave a side glance at
Sara.
"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 Sara walked in,
the entire seminary was struck dumb. "My word!" *** Jessie, jogging
Lavinia's elbow.
"Look at the Princess Sara!" Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia
looked she turned quite red. It was the Princess Sara indeed.
At least, since the days when she had been a princess, Sara had never looked as she
did now. She did not seem the Sara 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 color, and
beautifully made.
Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jessie 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," Jessie whispered.
"I always thought something would happen to her.
She's so ***." "Perhaps the diamond mines have suddenly
appeared again," said Lavinia, scathingly.
"Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly thing."
"Sara," 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, Sara went to her old seat of honor, 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 Sara sat in silence and looked into the coals with dreaming eyes it generally
meant that she was making a new 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 Sara did and said.
"I can't help thinking about my friend," Sara 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 up 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; only I
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 think what you
have done for us! Please let me say just 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 Sara, slowly. "It sounds--rather like a cat--trying to
get in." She left her chair and went to the
skylight.
It was a *** 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 disconsolately 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 Lascar's attic, and he saw the light."
Becky ran to her side. "Are you going to let him in, miss?" she
said.
"Yes," Sara answered joyfully. "It's too cold for monkeys to be out.
They're delicate. I'll coax him in."
She put a hand out delicately, speaking in a coaxing voice--as she spoke to the
sparrows and to Melchisedec--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 paw on him and drew him
towards her.
He had felt human love in the slim brown hands of Ram Dass, 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, ain't he?" said Becky.
"He looks like a very ugly baby," laughed Sara.
"I beg your pardon, monkey; but I'm 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 paw and
scratched his head. "What shall you do with him?"
Becky asked.
"I shall let him sleep with me tonight, and then take him back to the Indian gentleman
tomorrow. 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.
>
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett CHAPTER 17.
"It Is the Child!"
The next afternoon three members of the Large Family sat in the Indian gentleman's
library, doing 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 satisfactorily to 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. Carrisford 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 chirrup 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 cheering up is too loud, Mr. Carrisford?" 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.
"We'll all be as quiet as mice." "Mice don't make a noise like that," said
Janet.
Donald made a bridle 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. Carrisford 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 un-fairy 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
mine 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 am 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 am sure it would break his heart."
"You are an understanding little woman, Janet," the Indian gentleman said, and he
held her hand close.
"Did you tell Mr. Carrisford," Donald shouted again, "about the little-girl-who-
isn't-a-beggar? Did you tell him she has new nice clothes?
P'r'aps 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's papa," Donald proclaimed.
"But there is no little girl." All three of them incontinently fled from
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. Carrisford made an effort to rise and sank back again.
"It is no use," he said. "What a wreck I am!"
Mr. Carmichael's voice approached the door.
"No, children," he was saying; "you may come in after I have talked to Mr.
Carrisford. 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. Carrisford asked.
"The child the Russian people adopted?"
"She is not the child we are looking for," was Mr. Carmichael's answer.
"She is much younger than Captain Crewe's little girl.
Her name is Emily Carew.
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 from Mr. Carmichael's. "Then the search has to be begun over
again," he said. "That is all.
Please sit down."
Mr. Carmichael 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 and desert a 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. Carrisford
fretted.
"Have you any new suggestion to make--any whatsoever?"
Mr. Carmichael 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," said
Mr. Carrisford. 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," said Carrisford.
"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 Crewe as a child could be."
Perhaps the Magic was at work again at that very moment--the beautiful Magic.
It really seemed as if it might be so.
What was it that brought Ram Dass into the room--even as his master spoke--salaaming
respectfully, but with a scarcely concealed touch of excitement in his dark, flashing
eyes?
"Sahib," he said, "the child herself has come--the child the sahib 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 sahib to see and speak with her."
"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Carmichael. "God knows," Mr. Carrrisford answered.
"She is the child I spoke of.
A little drudge at the school." He waved his hand to Ram Dass, 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.
Ram Dass 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 Ram Dass, however, it could
not have been done." Then Sara 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 Sara'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. Sara looked toward Ram Dass, who stood near
the door.
"Shall I give him to the Lascar?" she asked.
"How do you know he is a Lascar?" said the Indian gentleman, smiling a little.
"Oh, I know Lascars," Sara 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.
Sara 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 wonderingly.
Something seemed to be the matter with him.
"You live next door?" he demanded. "Yes; I live at Miss Minchin's seminary."
"But you are not one of her pupils?" A strange little smile hovered about Sara'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 boarder; but now--"
"You were a pupil! What are you now?"
The *** little sad smile was on Sara's lips again.
"I sleep in the attic, next to the scullery maid," 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. Carrisford, sinking back as if he had lost
his strength. "Question her; I cannot."
The big, kind father of the Large Family knew how to question little girls.
Sara realized 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 Sara, 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 Sara, "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 Sara.
"There was no money; I belong to nobody." "How did your father lose his money?" the
Indian gentleman broke in breathlessly.
"He did not lose it himself," Sara answered, wondering 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." Sara 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 Crewe," Sara answered, feeling startled.
"Captain Crewe. He died in India."
The haggard face contracted, and Ram Dass sprang to his master's side.
"Carmichael," the invalid gasped, "it is the child--the child!"
For a moment Sara thought he was going to die.
Ram Dass poured out drops from a bottle, and held them to his lips.
Sara 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." Sara 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."
>
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett CHAPTER 18.
"I Tried Not to Be"
It was pretty, comfortable Mrs. Carmichael who explained everything.
She was sent for at once, and came across the square to take Sara 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. Carrisford 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 mamma will come in a few minutes."
And it was Janet who led her away. "We're so glad you are found," she said.
"You don't know how glad we are that you are found."
Donald stood with his hands in his pockets, and gazed at Sara with reflecting and self-
reproachful eyes.
"If I'd just asked what your name was when I gave you my sixpence," he said, "you
would have told me it was Sara Crewe, and then you would have been found in a
minute."
Then Mrs. Carmichael came in. She looked very much moved, and suddenly
took Sara in her arms and kissed her. "You look bewildered, poor child," she
said.
"And it is not to be wondered at." Sara could only think of one thing.
"Was he," she said, with a glance toward 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 Sara.
"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." Sara 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 Sara Crewe's sake."
The library door opened and Mr. Carmichael appeared, calling Sara to him with a
gesture.
"Mr. Carrisford is better already," he said.
"He wants you to come to him." Sara 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 her.
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. Sara 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 Sara. "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 Sara for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing thing.
One of the housemaids had seen her steal out of the area with something hidden under
her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps of the next door and enter the house.
"What does she mean!" cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia.
"I don't know, I'm sure, sister," answered 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 try 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
apologize for her intrusion."
Sara 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 visitor's arrival.
Sara 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 Ladies' 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, sir."
"In that case," the Indian gentleman replied, "you have arrived at the right
time.
My solicitor, Mr. Carmichael, was just on the point of going to see you."
Mr. Carmichael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr. Carrisford
in amazement.
"Your 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 through the forwardness of
one of my pupils--a charity pupil. I came to explain that she intruded without
my knowledge."
She turned upon Sara. "Go home at once," she commanded
indignantly. "You shall be severely punished.
Go home at once."
The Indian gentleman drew Sara 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 Sara sit down again, and held her hands in his--which was another trick
of her papa's.
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 business woman, and did not enjoy.
"Mr. Carrisford, madam," he said, "was an intimate friend of the late Captain Crewe.
He was his partner in certain large investments.
The fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered, and is now in
Mr. Carrisford's hands."
"The fortune!" cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she uttered the
exclamation. "Sara's fortune!"
"It WILL be Sara's fortune," replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly.
"It is Sara'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, Sara Crewe, 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 Sara'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 Crewe left her in my charge," Miss Minchin argued.
"She must return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor boarder 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 Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to
allow it. But that rests with Sara."
"Then," said Miss Minchin, "I appeal to Sara.
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--ahem--I have always been fond of you."
Sara'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?"
Sara 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 Melchisedec in 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 Ermengarde and Lottie are kept away--"
Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness.
"Excuse me," he said; "she will see anyone she wishes to see.
The parents of Miss Crewe'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 mines.
And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how unhappy Sara Crewe 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 Sara--"that you feel now that you are a princess again."
Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet 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 salaamed
her out of the room. She returned home and, going to her sitting
room, sent at 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'm 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've often thought it would have been better if you had been less severe on
Sara Crewe, 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've 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 her 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's been
treated, and all our pupils would 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're 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 salts and sal volatile 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, Ermengarde came in with a letter in her
hand and a *** expression on her round face.
It was *** 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."
Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned.
"I have just had this letter from Sara," she said, holding it out to let them see
what a long letter it was.
"From Sara!" Every voice joined in that exclamation.
"Where is she?" almost shrieked Jessie. "Next door," said Ermengarde, "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 babel, and Lottie began
to cry plaintively.
Ermengarde 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. Carrisford thought they were ruined--"
"Who is Mr. Carrisford?" shouted Jessie. "The Indian gentleman.
And Captain Crewe thought so, too--and he died; and Mr. Carrisford had brain fever
and ran away, and HE almost died. And he did not know where Sara was.
And it turned out that there were millions and millions of diamonds in the mines; and
half of them belong to Sara; and they belonged to her when she was living in the
attic with no one but Melchisedec for a friend, and the cook ordering her about.
And Mr. Carrisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his home--
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 round Ermengarde in the schoolroom and heard read and re-
read the letter containing a story which
was quite as wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented, and which had the
amazing charm of having happened to Sara herself and the mystic Indian gentleman in
the very next house.
Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep up stairs 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 Sara'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 tonight, and 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 her startled face.
"Missee sahib remembered," he said.
"She told the sahib 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 sahib commands you to come to him tomorrow.
You are to be the attendant of missee sahib.
Tonight I take these things back over the roof."
And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salaam and slipped through
the skylight with an agile silentness of movement which showed Becky how easily he
had done it before.
>
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett 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 Melchisedec 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. Sara 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 and dull and irritable, Ram Dass had tried
to distract him by describing the passers by, and there was one child who passed
oftener than any one 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 were 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.
"Sahib," 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. Carrisford's 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 Sara's wearied 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 Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had closed the lantern-slide and lain
flat upon the floor.
These and many other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand
questions. "I am so glad," Sara said.
"I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!"
There never were 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 Sara.
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 Sara.
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 paw on the door, and
when Sara went to find out what it was, there stood a great dog--a splendid Russian
boarhound--with a grand silver and gold collar bearing an inscription.
"I am Boris," it read; "I serve the Princess Sara."
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 Ermengarde and Lottie, gathered to
rejoice together were very delightful.
But the hours when Sara and the Indian gentleman sat alone and read or talked had
a special charm of their own. During their passing many interesting
things occurred.
One evening, Mr. Carrisford, 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,' Sara?" he asked.
Sara 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 rather a
sad tone in his voice. "Which hungry day was it?"
"I forgot you didn't know," said Sara.
"It was the day the dream came true." Then she told him the story of the bun
shop, and the fourpence 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 was it?" said Mr. Carrisford, in a low tone.
"You may do anything you like to do, princess."
"I was wondering," rather hesitated Sara-- "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 Sara.
"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 Sara, 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 her 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 Sara 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 Sara 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 Sara; "once you gave me six
buns for fourpence, and--" "And you gave five of 'em 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 notices a hungry
face in that way; and I've thought of it many a time.
Excuse the liberty, miss,"--to Sara--"but you look rosier and--well, better than you
did that--that--" "I am better, thank you," said Sara.
"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 Sara, 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 am 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 o' thinking of you--an' how wet an' cold you was, an'
how hungry you looked; an' yet you gave away your hot buns as if you was a
princess."
The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sara 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 hungrier than I was."
"She was starving," said the woman.
"Many's the time she's told me of it since- -how she sat there in the wet, and felt as
if a wolf was a-tearing at her poor young insides."
"Oh, have you seen her since then?" exclaimed Sara.
"Do you know where she is?" "Yes, I do," answered the woman, smiling
more good-naturedly than ever.
"Why, she's in that there back room, miss, an' has been for a month; an' a decent,
well-meanin' girl she's goin' to turn out, an' such a help to me in the shop an' in
the kitchen as you'd scarce believe, knowin' 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 Sara 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; an' I found she was willing, and somehow I got to
like her; and the end of it was, I've given
her a place an' a home, and she helps me, an' behaves well, an' 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 Sara took her
hand out of her *** and held it out across the counter, and Anne took it, and they
looked straight into each other's eyes.
"I am so glad," Sara said. "And I have 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, Sara 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.
>