[pg/etext94/lprss11.txt]

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
July, 1994 [Etext #146]

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A Litte Princess 

by Frances Hodgson Burnett



A LITTLE PRINCESS


Summary: Sara Crewe, a pupil at Miss Minchin's
London school, is left in poverty when her father dies,
but is later rescued by a mysterious benefactor.



CONTENTS

1.  Sara
2.  A French Lesson
3.  Ermengarde
4.  Lottie
5.  Becky
6.  The Diamond Mines
7.  The Diamond Mines Again
8.  In the Attic
9.  Melchisedec
10. The Indian Gentleman
11. Ram Dass
12. The Other Side of the Wall
13. One of the Populace
14. What Melchisedec Heard and Saw
15. The Magic
16. The Visitor
17. "It Is the Child"
18. "I Tried Not to Be"
19. Anne



A Little Princess


1

Sara


Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick
and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted
and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an
odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was
driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.

She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father,
who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing
people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.

She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look
on her small face.  It would have been an old look for a child
of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven.  The fact was, however,
that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could
not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking
things about grown-up people and the world they belonged to. 
She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.

At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made
from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe.  She was thinking
of the big ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it,
of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some
young officers' wives who used to try to make her talk to them
and laugh at the things she said.

Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was
that at one time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then
in the middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle
through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night. 
She found this so puzzling that she moved closer to her father.

"Papa," she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was almost
a whisper, "papa."

"What is it, darling?"  Captain Crewe answered, holding her closer
and looking down into her face.  "What is Sara thinking of?"

"Is this the place?"  Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to him. 
"Is it, papa?"

"Yes, little Sara, it is.  We have reached it at last."  And though
she was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he
said it.

It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her
mind for "the place," as she always called it.  Her mother had
died when she was born, so she had never known or missed her. 
Her young, handsome, rich, petting father seemed to be the only
relation she had in the world.  They had always played together
and been fond of each other.  She only knew he was rich because she
had heard people say so when they thought she was not listening,
and she had also heard them say that when she grew up she would
be rich, too.  She did not know all that being rich meant.  She had
always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used to seeing
many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee Sahib,"
and gave her her own way in everything.  She had had toys and pets
and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that
people who were rich had these things.  That, however, was all she
knew about it.

During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that
thing was "the place" she was to be taken to some day.  The climate
of India was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they
were sent away from it--generally to England and to school. 
She had seen other children go away, and had heard their fathers
and mothers talk about the letters they received from them. 
She had known that she would be obliged to go also, and though
sometimes her father's stories of the voyage and the new country
had attracted her, she had been troubled by the thought that he
could not stay with her.

"Couldn't you go to that place with me, papa?" she had asked
when she was five years old.  "Couldn't you go to school, too? 
I would help you with your lessons."

"But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sara,"
he had always said.  "You will go to a nice house where there will be
a lot of little girls, and you will play together, and I will send
you plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem
scarcely a year before you are big enough and clever enough to come
back and take care of papa."

She had liked to think of that.  To keep the house for her father;
to ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when he had
dinner parties; to talk to him and read his books--that would be
what she would like most in the world, and if one must go away to
"the place" in England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. 
She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she
had plenty of books she could console herself.  She liked books
more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories
of beautiful things and telling them to herself.  Sometimes she
had told them to her father, and he had liked them as much as she did.

"Well, papa," she said softly, "if we are here I suppose we must
be resigned."

He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her.  He was really
not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret. 
His quaint little Sara had been a great companion to him, and he
felt he should be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India,
he went into his bungalow knowing he need not expect to see the
small figure in its white frock come forward to meet him.  So he
held her very closely in his arms as the cab rolled into the big,
dull square in which stood the house which was their destination.

It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others
in its row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate
on which was engraved in black letters:

MISS MINCHIN,

Select Seminary for Young Ladies.


"Here we are, Sara," said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound
as cheerful as possible.  Then he lifted her out of the cab
and they mounted the steps and rang the bell.  Sara often thought
afterward that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin. 
It was respectable and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly;
and the very armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them.  In the hall
everything was hard and polished--even the red cheeks of the moon
face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. 
The drawing room into which they were ushered was covered by a carpet
with a square pattern upon it, the chairs were square, and a heavy
marble timepiece stood upon the heavy marble mantel.

As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast
one of her quick looks about her.

"I don't like it, papa," she said.  "But then I dare say soldiers--
even brave ones--don't really LIKE going into bat{tle}."

Captain Crewe laughed outright at this.  He was young and full of fun,
and he never tired of hearing Sara's queer speeches.

"Oh, little Sara," he said.  "What shall I do when I have no one
to say solemn things to me?  No one else is as solemn as you are."

"But why do solemn things make you laugh so?" inquired Sara.

"Because you are such fun when you say them," he answered,
laughing still more.  And then suddenly he swept her into his arms
and kissed her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and looking
almost as if tears had come into his eyes.

It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room.  She was very
like her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. 
She had large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile. 
It spread itself into a very large smile when she saw Sara and
Captain Crewe.  She had heard a great many desirable things of the
young soldier from the lady who had recommended her school to him. 
Among other things, she had heard that he was a rich father who was
willing to spend a great deal of money on his little daughter.

"It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful
and promising child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's hand and
stroking it.  "Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. 
A clever child is a great treasure in an establishment like mine."

Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's face. 
She was thinking something odd, as usual.

"Why does she say I am a beautiful child?" she was thinking. 
"I am not beautiful at all.  Colonel Grange's little girl, Isobel,
is beautiful.  She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long
hair the color of gold.  I have short black hair and green eyes;
besides which, I am a thin child and not fair in the least.  I am
one of the ugliest children I ever saw.  She is beginning by telling
a story."

She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. 
She was not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty
of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own.  She was a slim,
supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense,
attractive little face.  Her hair was heavy and quite black and
only curled at the tips; her eyes were greenish gray, it is true,
but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though
she herself did not like the color of them, many other people did. 
Still she was very firm in her belief that she was an ugly little girl,
and she was not at all elated by Miss Minchin's flattery.

"I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful," she thought;
"and I should know I was telling a story.  I believe I am as ugly
as she is--in my way.  What did she say that for?"

After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had
said it.  She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa
and mamma who brought a child to her school.

Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss
Minchin talked.  She had been brought to the seminary because Lady
Meredith's two little girls had been educated there, and Captain
Crewe had a great respect for Lady Meredith's experience. 
Sara was to be what was known as "a parlor boarder," and she was
to enjoy even greater privileges than parlor boarders usually did. 
She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting room of her own;
she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place
of the ayah who had been her nurse in India.

"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe
said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. 
"The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and
too much.  She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing
into books.  She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles
them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. 
She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants
grown-up books--great, big, fat ones--French and German as well
as English--history and biography and poets, and all sorts
of things.  Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. 
Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. 
She ought to play more with dolls."

"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every
few days I should have more than I could be fond of.  Dolls ought
to be intimate friends.  Emily is going to be my intimate friend."

Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked
at Captain Crewe.

"Who is Emily?" she inquired.

"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling.

Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she answered.

"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said.  "She is a doll papa
is going to buy for me.  We are going out together to find her. 
I have called her Emily.  She is going to be my friend when papa
is gone.  I want her to talk to about him."

Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed.

"What an original child!" she said.  "What a darling little creature!"

"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close.  "She is a darling
little creature.  Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin."

Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact,
she remained with him until he sailed away again to India.  They went
out and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things. 
They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed;
but Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little
girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself,
so between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child
of seven.  There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs,
and lace dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great,
soft ostrich feathers, and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of
tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant
supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered
to each other that the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes
must be at least some foreign princess--perhaps the little daughter
of an Indian rajah.

And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy
shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her.

"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. 
"I want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. 
The trouble with dolls, papa"--and she put her head on one side
and reflected as she said it--"the trouble with dolls is that they
never seem to HEAR>." So they looked at big ones and little ones--
at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue--at dolls with brown curls
and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed.

"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes. 
"If, when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take her to a
dressmaker and have her things made to fit.  They will fit better
if they are tried on."

After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look
in at the shop windows and let the cab follow them.  They had
passed two or three places without even going in, when, as they
were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one,
Sara suddenly started and clutched her father's arm.

"Oh, papa!" she cried.  "There is Emily!"

A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression
in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone
she was intimate with and fond of.

"She is actually waiting there for us!" she said.  "Let us go
in to her."

"Dear me," said Captain Crewe, "I feel as if we ought to have
someone to introduce us."

"You must introduce me and I will introduce you," said Sara. 
"But I knew her the minute I saw her--so perhaps she knew me, too."

Perhaps she had known her.  She had certainly a very intelligent
expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. 
She was a large doll, but not too large to carry about easily;
she had naturally curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle
about her, and her eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with soft,
thick eyelashes which were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines.

"Of course," said Sara, looking into her face as she held her on
her knee, "of course papa, this is Emily."

So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children's outfitter's
shop and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara's own. 
She had lace frocks, too, and velvet and muslin ones, and hats
and coats and beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and gloves
and handkerchiefs and furs.

"I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a
good mother," said Sara.  "I'm her mother, though I am going
to make a companion of her."

Captain Crewe would really have enjoyed the shopping tremendously,
but that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart.  This all meant that
he was going to be separated from his beloved, quaint little comrade.

He got out of his bed in the middle of that night and went and stood
looking down at Sara, who lay asleep with Emily in her arms. 
Her black hair was spread out on the pillow and Emily's golden-brown
hair mingled with it, both of them had lace-ruffled nightgowns,
and both had long eyelashes which lay and curled up on their cheeks. 
Emily looked so like a real child that Captain Crewe felt glad
she was there.  He drew a big sigh and pulled his mustache with a
boyish expression.

"Heigh-ho, little Sara!" he said to himself "I don't believe you
know how much your daddy will miss you."

The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there. 
He was to sail away the next morning.  He explained to Miss Minchin
that his solicitors, Messrs.  Barrow & Skipworth, had charge of
his affairs in England and would give her any advice she wanted,
and that they would pay the bills she sent in for Sara's expenses. 
He would write to Sara twice a week, and she was to be given every
pleasure she asked for.

"She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it
isn't safe to give her," he said.

Then he went with Sara into her little sitting room and they bade
each other good-by. Sara sat on his knee and held the lapels of his
coat in her small hands, and looked long and hard at his face.

"Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking her hair.

"No," she answered.  "I know you by heart.  You are inside my heart." 
And they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would
never let each other go.

When the cab drove away from the door, Sara was sitting on the
floor of her sitting room, with her hands under her chin and her
eyes following it until it had turned the corner of the square. 
Emily was sitting by her, and she looked after it, too.  When Miss
Minchin sent her sister, Miss Amelia, to see what the child was doing,
she found she could not open the door.

"I have locked it," said a queer, polite little voice from inside. 
"I want to be quite by myself, if you please."

Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of
her sister.  She was really the better-natured person of the two,
but she never disobeyed Miss Minchin.  She went downstairs again,
looking almost alarmed.

"I never saw such a funny, old-fashioned child, sister," she said. 
"She has locked herself in, and she is not making the least particle
of noise."

"It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some
of them do," Miss Minchin answered.  "I expected that a child
as much spoiled as she is would set the whole house in an uproar. 
If ever a child was given her own way in everything, she is."

"I've been opening her trunks and putting her things away,"
said Miss Amelia.  "I never saw anything like them--sable and ermine
on her coats, and real Valenciennes lace on her underclothing. 
You have seen some of her clothes.  What DO you think of them?"

"I think they are perfectly ridiculous," replied Miss Minchin,
sharply; "but they will look very well at the head of the
line when we take the schoolchildren to church on Sunday. 
She has been provided for as if she were a little princess."

And upstairs in the locked room Sara and Emily sat on the floor
and stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared,
while Captain Crewe looked backward, waving and kissing his hand
as if he could not bear to stop.



2

A French Lesson


When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody looked
at her with wide, interested eyes.  By that time every pupil--
from Lavinia Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt quite grown up,
to Lottie Legh, who was only just four and the baby of the school--
had heard a great deal about her.  They knew very certainly that
she was Miss Minchin's show pupil and was considered a credit
to the establishment.  One or two of them had even caught a glimpse
of her French maid, Mariette, who had arrived the evening before. 
Lavinia had managed to pass Sara's room when the door was open,
and had seen Mariette opening a box which had arrived late from
some shop.

"It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them--frills and frills,"
she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her geography. 
"I saw her shaking them out.  I heard Miss Minchin say to Miss
Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous
for a child.  My mamma says that children should be dressed simply. 
She has got one of those petticoats on now.  I saw it when she
sat down."

"She has silk stockings on!" whispered Jessie, bending over her
geography also.  "And what little feet!  I never saw such little feet."

"Oh," sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, "that is the way her slippers
are made.  My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look small
if you have a clever shoemaker.  I don't think she is pretty at all. 
Her eyes are such a queer color."

"She isn't pretty as other pretty people are," said Jessie,
stealing a glance across the room; "but she makes you want to look
at her again.  She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes
are almost green."

Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. 
She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk.  She was not abashed
at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her.  She was interested
and looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. 
She wondered what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin,
and if they cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa
at all like her own.  She had had a long talk with Emily about her
papa that morning.

"He is on the sea now, Emily," she had said.  "We must be very great
friends to each other and tell each other things.  Emily, look at me. 
You have the nicest eyes I ever saw--but I wish you could speak."

She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one
of her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even
pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood. 
After Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue schoolroom frock
and tied her hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she went to Emily,
who sat in a chair of her own, and gave her a book.

"You can read that while I am downstairs," she said; and, seeing Mariette
looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious little face.

"What I believe about dolls," she said, "is that they can do things
they will not let us know about.  Perhaps, really, Emily can read
and talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out
of the room.  That is her secret.  You see, if people knew that
dolls could do things, they would make them work.  So, perhaps,
they have promised each other to keep it a secret.  If you stay
in the room, Emily will just sit there and stare; but if you go out,
she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out of the window. 
Then if she heard either of us coming, she would just run back
and jump into her chair and pretend she had been there all the time."

"Comme elle est drole!"  Mariette said to herself, and when she went
downstairs she told the head housemaid about it.  But she had already
begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small
face and such perfect manners.  She had taken care of children
before who were not so polite.  Sara was a very fine little person,
and had a gentle, appreciative way of saying, "If you please, Mariette,"
"Thank you, Mariette," which was very charming.  Mariette told
the head housemaid that she thanked her as if she was thanking a lady.

"Elle a l'air d'une princesse, cette petite," she said. 
Indeed, she was very much pleased with her new little mistress
and liked her place greatly.

After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few minutes,
being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a dignified
manner upon her desk.

"Young ladies," she said, "I wish to introduce you to your
new companion."  All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara
rose also.  "I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crewe;
she has just come to us from a great distance--in fact, from India. 
As soon as lessons are over you must make each other's acquaintance."

The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy,
and then they sat down and looked at each other again.

"Sara," said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, "come here to me."

She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its leaves. 
Sara went to her politely.

"As your papa has engaged a French maid for you," she began, "I conclude
that he wishes you to make a special study of the French language."

Sara felt a little awkward.

"I think he engaged her," she said, "because he--he thought I would
like her, Miss Minchin."

"I am afraid," said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile,
"that you have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine
that things are done because you like them.  My impression is
that your papa wished you to learn French."

If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite
to people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. 
But, as it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks.  Miss Minchin
was a very severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely
sure that Sara knew nothing whatever of French that she felt as if it
would be almost rude to correct her.  The truth was that Sara could
not remember the time when she had not seemed to know French. 
Her father had often spoken it to her when she had been a baby. 
Her mother had been a French woman, and Captain Crewe had loved
her language, so it happened that Sara had always heard and been
familiar with it.

"I--I have never really learned French, but--but--" she began,
trying shyly to make herself clear.

One of Miss Minchin's chief secret annoyances was that she did not
speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating fact. 
She, therefore, had no intention of discussing the matter and laying
herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil.

"That is enough," she said with polite tartness.  "If you
have not learned, you must begin at once.  The French master,
Monsieur Dufarge, will be here in a few minutes.  Take this
book and look at it until he arrives."

Sara's cheeks felt warm.  She went back to her seat and opened the book. 
She looked at the first page with a grave face.  She knew it would
be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. 
But it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page
which told her that "le pere" meant "the father," and "la mere"
meant "the mother."

Miss Minchin glanced toward her scrutinizingly.

"You look rather cross, Sara," she said.  "I am sorry you do not
like the idea of learning French."

"I am very fond of it," answered Sara, thinking she would try
again; "but--"

"You must not say `but' when you are told to do things,"
said Miss Minchin.  "Look at your book again."

And Sara did so, and did not smile, even when she found that "le fils"
meant "the son," and "le frere" meant "the brother."

"When Monsieur Dufarge comes," she thought, "I can make him understand."

Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward.  He was a very nice,
intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when
his eyes fell upon Sara trying politely to seem absorbed in her
little book of phrases.

"Is this a new pupil for me, madame?" he said to Miss Minchin. 
"I hope that is my good fortune."

"Her papa--Captain Crewe--is very anxious that she should begin
the language.  But I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. 
She does not seem to wish to learn," said Miss Minchin.

"I am sorry of that, mademoiselle," he said kindly to Sara. 
"Perhaps, when we begin to study together, I may show you that it
is a charming tongue."

Little Sara rose in her seat.  She was beginning to feel
rather desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace.  She looked
up into Monsieur Dufarge's face with her big, green-gray eyes,
and they were quite innocently appealing.  She knew that he would
understand as soon as she spoke.  She began to explain quite
simply in pretty and fluent French.  Madame had not understood. 
She had not learned French exactly--not out of books--but her
papa and other people had always spoken it to her, and she had
read it and written it as she had read and written English. 
Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he did.  Her dear mamma,
who had died when she was born, had been French.  She would be glad
to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what she had tried
to explain to madame was that she already knew the words in this book--
and she held out the little book of phrases.

When she began to speak Miss Minchin started quite violently
and sat staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly,
until she had finished.  Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his
smile was one of great pleasure.  To hear this pretty childish voice
speaking his own language so simply and charmingly made him feel
almost as if he were in his native land--which in dark, foggy days
in London sometimes seemed worlds away.  When she had finished,
he took the phrase book from her, with a look almost affectionate. 
But he spoke to Miss Minchin.

"Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her.  She has
not LEARNED French; she is French.  Her accent is exquisite."

"You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified,
turning to Sara.

"I--I tried," said Sara.  "I--I suppose I did not begin right."

Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her
fault that she was not allowed to explain.  And when she saw
that the pupils had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie
were giggling behind their French grammars, she felt infuriated.

"Silence, young ladies!" she said severely, rapping upon the desk. 
"Silence at once!"

And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against
her show pupil.



3

Ermengarde


On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin's side,
aware that the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her,
she had noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age,
who looked at her very hard with a pair of light, rather dull,
blue eyes.  She was a fat child who did not look as if she were
in the least clever, but she had a good-naturedly pouting mouth. 
Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight pigtail, tied with a ribbon,
and she had pulled this pigtail around her neck, and was biting
the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the desk, as she stared
wonderingly at the new pupil.  When Monsieur Dufarge began to speak
to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and when Sara stepped
forward and, looking at him with the innocent, appealing eyes,
answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat little girl
gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed amazement. 
Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to remember
that "la mere" meant "the mother," and "le pere," "the father,"--
when one spoke sensible English--it was almost too much for her
suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who seemed
not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew any
number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were
mere trifles.

She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she
attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely
cross at the moment, immediately pounced upon her.

"Miss St. John!" she exclaimed severely.  "What do you mean by
such conduct?  Remove your elbows!  Take your ribbon out of your mouth! 
Sit up at once!"

Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie
tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost
looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes;
and Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather
to like her and want to be her friend.  It was a way of hers
always to want to spring into any fray in which someone was made
uncomfortable or unhappy.

"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago,"
her father used to say, "she would have gone about the country
with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. 
She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble."

So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John,
and kept glancing toward her through the morning.  She saw that
lessons were no easy matter to her, and that there was no danger
of her ever being spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. 
Her French lesson was a pathetic thing.  Her pronunciation made
even Monsieur Dufarge smile in spite of himself, and Lavinia and
Jessie and the more fortunate girls either giggled or looked at her
in wondering disdain.  But Sara did not laugh.  She tried to look
as if she did not hear when Miss St. John called "le bon pain,"
"lee bong pang."  She had a fine, hot little temper of her own,
and it made her feel rather savage when she heard the titters and saw
the poor, stupid, distressed child's face.

"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she bent
over her book.  "They ought not to laugh."

When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups
to talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather
disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over to her and spoke. 
She only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each
other by way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something
friendly about Sara, and people always felt it.

"What is your name?" she said.

To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must recall that a new
pupil is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of this
new pupil the entire school had talked the night before until it fell
asleep quite exhausted by excitement and contradictory stories. 
A new pupil with a carriage and a pony and a maid, and a voyage
from India to discuss, was not an ordinary acquaintance.

"My name's Ermengarde St. John," she answered.

"Mine is Sara Crewe," said Sara.  "Yours is very pretty.  It sounds
like a story book."

"Do you like it?" fluttered Ermengarde.  "I--I like yours."

Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father. 
Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity.  If you have a
father who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages,
and has thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart,
he frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your
lesson books at least; and it is not improbable that he will feel you
ought to be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write
a French exercise.  Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. 
He could not understand how a child of his could be a notably and
unmistakably dull creature who never shone in anything.

"Good heavens!" he had said more than once, as he stared at her,
"there are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza!"

If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing
entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly like her. 
She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied.

"She must be MADE to learn," her father said to Miss Minchin.

Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in disgrace or
in tears.  She learned things and forgot them; or, if she remembered them,
she did not understand them.  So it was natural that, having made Sara's
acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound admiration.

"You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully.

Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and,
tucking up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees.

"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she answered. 
"You could speak it if you had always heard it."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengarde.  "I NEVER could speak it!"

"Why?" inquired Sara, curiously.

Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled.

"You heard me just now," she said.  "I'm always like that. 
I can't SAY the words.  They're so queer."

She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice,
"You are CLEVER> aren't you?"

Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the
sparrows were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings
and the sooty branches of the trees.  She reflected a few moments. 
She had heard it said very often that she was "clever," and she
wondered if she was--and IF she was, how it had happened.

"I don't know," she said.  "I can't tell."  Then, seeing a mournful
look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed
the subject.

"Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired.

"Who is Emily?"  Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done.

"Come up to my room and see," said Sara, holding out her hand.

They jumped down from the window-seat together, and went upstairs.

"Is it true," Ermengarde whispered, as they went through the
hall--"is it true that you have a playroom all to yourself?"

"Yes," Sara answered.  "Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have
one, because--well, it was because when I play I make up stories
and tell them to myself, and I don't like people to hear me. 
It spoils it if I think people listen."

They had reached the passage leading to Sara's room by this time,
and Ermengarde stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath.

"You MAK up> stories!" she gasped.  "Can you do that--as well
as speak French?  CAN you?"

Sara looked at her in simple surprise.

"Why, anyone can make up things," she said.  "Have you never tried?"

She put her hand warningly on Ermengarde's.

"Let us go very quietly to the door," she whispered, "and then I
will open it quite suddenly; perhaps we may catch her."

She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her
eyes which fascinated Ermengarde, though she had not the remotest
idea what it meant, or whom it was she wanted to "catch," or why
she wanted to catch her.  Whatsoever she meant, Ermengarde was
sure it was something delightfully exciting.  So, quite thrilled
with expectation, she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. 
They made not the least noise until they reached the door. 
Then Sara suddenly turned the handle, and threw it wide open. 
Its opening revealed the room quite neat and quiet, a fire gently
burning in the grate, and a wonderful doll sitting in a chair by it,
apparently reading a book.

"Oh, she got back to her seat before we could see her!"  Sara explained. 
"Of course they always do.  They are as quick as lightning."

Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again.

"Can she--walk?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes," answered Sara.  "At least I believe she can.  At least I PRETEND
I believe she can.  And that makes it seem as if it were true. 
Have you never pretended things?"

"No," said Ermengarde.  "Never.  I--tell me about it."

She was so bewitched by this odd, new companion that she actually
stared at Sara instead of at Emily--notwithstanding that Emily
was the most attractive doll person she had ever seen.

"Let us sit down," said Sara, "and I will tell you.  It's so easy
that when you begin you can't stop.  You just go on and on
doing it always.  And it's beautiful.  Emily, you must listen. 
This is Ermengarde St. John, Emily.  Ermengarde, this is Emily. 
Would you like to hold her?"

"Oh, may I?" said Ermengarde.  "May I, really?  She is beautiful!" 
And Emily was put into her arms.

Never in her dull, short life had Miss St. John dreamed of such
an hour as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they
heard the lunch-bell ring and were obliged to go downstairs.

Sara sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things.  She sat
rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. 
She told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what
fascinated Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls
who walked and talked, and who could do anything they chose when
the human beings were out of the room, but who must keep their
powers a secret and so flew back to their places "like lightning"
when people returned to the room.

"WE couldn't do it," said Sara, seriously.  "You see, it's a kind
of magic."

Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily,
Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change.  A cloud seemed to pass
over it and put out the light in her shining eyes.  She drew
her breath in so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound,
and then she shut her lips and held them tightly closed,
as if she was determined either to do or NOT to do something. 
Ermengarde had an idea that if she had been like any other
little girl, she might have suddenly burst out sobbing and crying. 
But she did not.

"Have you a--a pain?"  Ermengarde ventured.

"Yes," Sara answered, after a moment's silence.  "But it is not
in my body."  Then she added something in a low voice which she
tried to keep quite steady, and it was this:  "Do you love your
father more than anything else in all the whole world?"

Ermengarde's mouth fell open a little.  She knew that it would be far
from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say
that it had never occurred to you that you COULD love your father,
that you would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in
his society for ten minutes.  She was, indeed, greatly embarrassed.

"I--I scarcely ever see him," she stammered.  "He is always
in the library--reading things."

"I love mine more than all the world ten times over," Sara said. 
"That is what my pain is.  He has gone away."

She put her head quietly down on her little, huddled-up knees,
and sat very still for a few minutes.

"She's going to cry out loud," thought Ermengarde, fearfully.

But she did not.  Her short, black locks tumbled about her ears,
and she sat still.  Then she spoke without lifting her head.

"I promised him I would bear it," she said.  "And I will.  You have
to bear things.  Think what soldiers bear!  Papa is a soldier. 
If there was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and,
perhaps, deep wounds.  And he would never say a word--not one word."

Ermengarde could only gaze at her, but she felt that she was beginning
to adore her.  She was so wonderful and different from anyone else.

Presently, she lifted her face and shook back her black locks,
with a queer little smile.

"If I go on talking and talking," she said, "and telling you things
about pretending, I shall bear it better.  You don't forget,
but you bear it better."

Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her
eyes felt as if tears were in them.

"Lavinia and Jessie are `best friends,'" she said rather huskily. 
"I wish we could be `best friends.'  Would you have me for yours? 
You're clever, and I'm the stupidest child in the school, but I--
oh, I do so like you!"

"I'm glad of that," said Sara.  "It makes you thankful when you
are liked.  Yes.  We will be friends.  And I'll tell you what"--
a sudden gleam lighting her face--"I can help you with your
French lessons."



4

Lottie


If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss
Minchin's Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at
all good for her.  She was treated more as if she were a distinguished
guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. 
If she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might
have become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being
so much indulged and flattered.  If she had been an indolent child,
she would have learned nothing.  Privately Miss Minchin disliked her,
but she was far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which
might make such a desirable pupil wish to leave her school. 
She knew quite well that if Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she
was uncomfortable or unhappy, Captain Crewe would remove her at once. 
Miss Minchin's opinion was that if a child were continually praised
and never forbidden to do what she liked, she would be sure to be
fond of the place where she was so treated.  Accordingly, Sara was
praised for her quickness at her lessons, for her good manners,
for her amiability to her fellow pupils, for her generosity
if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full little purse;
the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a virtue,
and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain,
she might have been a very self-satisfied young person.  But the
clever little brain told her a great many sensible and true things
about herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked
these things over to Ermengarde as time went on.

"Things happen to people by accident," she used to say.  "A lot of nice
accidents have happened to me.  It just HAPPENED that I always liked
lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. 
It just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful
and nice and clever, and could give me everything I liked. 
Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have
everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help
but be good-tempered?  I don't know"--looking quite serious--"how I
shall ever find out whether I am really a nice child or a horrid one. 
Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, and no one will ever know, just because I
never have any trials."

"Lavinia has no trials," said Ermengarde, stolidly, "and she
is horrid enough."

Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively, as she thought
the matter over.

"Well," she said at last, "perhaps--perhaps that is because Lavinia
is GROWING>."
This was the result of a charitable recollection of having heard
Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she believed
it affected her health and temper.

Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful.  She was inordinately jealous of Sara. 
Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader
in the school.  She had led because she was capable of making
herself extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. 
She domineered over the little children, and assumed grand airs
with those big enough to be her companions.  She was rather pretty,
and had been the best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select
Seminary walked out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable
muffs appeared, combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led
by Miss Minchin at the head of the line.  This, at the beginning,
had been bitter enough; but as time went on it became apparent
that Sara was a leader, too, and not because she could make
herself disagreeable, but because she never did.

"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best friend"
by saying honestly, "she's never `grand' about herself the least bit,
and you know she might be, Lavvie.  I believe I couldn't help being--
just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made such
a fuss over.  It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off
when parents come."

"`Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave
about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation
of Miss Minchin.  "`Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. 
Her accent is so perfect.'  She didn't learn her French at the Seminary,
at any rate.  And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. 
She says herself she didn't learn it at all.  She just picked it up,
because she always heard her papa speak it.  And, as to her papa,
there is nothing so grand in being an Indian officer."

"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers.  He killed the one
in the skin Sara has in her room.  That's why she likes it so. 
She lies on it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was
a cat."

"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia.  "My mamma
says that way of hers of pretending things is silly.  She says she
will grow up eccentric."

{I}t was quite true that Sara was never "grand."  She was a friendly
little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a
free hand.  The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained
and ordered out of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve,
were never made to cry by this most envied of them all.  She was
a motherly young person, and when people fell down and scraped
their knees, she ran and helped them up and patted them, or found
in her pocket a bonbon or some other article of a soothing nature. 
She never pushed them out of her way or alluded to their years
as a humiliation and a blot upon their small characters.

"If you are four you are four," she said