The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in the schoolroom, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It was a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille—men who had spent so many years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who rescued them, their long, gray hair and beards almost hid their faces, and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were like beings in a dream.

      She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.

      “It makes me feel as if someone had hit me,” Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. “And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered.”

      She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner.

      Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having first irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended by falling down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and down in the midst of a group of friends and enemies, who were alternately coaxing and scolding her.

      “Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!” Lavinia commanded.

      “I’m not a cry-baby … I’m not!” wailed Lottie. “Sara, Sa—ra!”

      “If she doesn’t stop, Miss Minchin will hear her,” cried Jessie. “Lottie darling, I’ll give you a penny!”

      “I don’t want your penny,” sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at the fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth again.

      Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round her.

      “Now, Lottie,” she said. “Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara.”

      “She said I was a cry-baby,” wept Lottie.

      Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew.

      “But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED.” Lottie remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to lift up her voice.

      “I haven’t any mamma,” she proclaimed. “I haven’t—a bit—of mamma.”

      “Yes, you have,” said Sara, cheerfully. “Have you forgotten? Don’t you know that Sara is your mamma? Don’t you want Sara for your mamma?”

      Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff.

      “Come and sit in the window-seat with me,” Sara went on, “and I’ll whisper a story to you.”

      “Will you?” whimpered Lottie. “Will you—tell me—about the diamond mines?”

      “The diamond mines?” broke out Lavinia. “Nasty, little spoiled thing, I should like to SLAP her!”

      Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille, and she had had to recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go and take care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was not fond of Lavinia.

      “Well,” she said, with some fire, “I should like to slap YOU—but I don’t want to slap you!” restraining herself. “At least I both want to slap you—and I should LIKE to slap you—but I WON’T slap you. We are not little gutter children. We are both old enough to know better.”

      Here was Lavinia’s opportunity.

      “Ah, yes, your royal highness,” she said. “We are princesses, I believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil.”

      Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new “pretend” about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. She felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and everybody listened to her.

      “It’s true,” she said. “Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”

      Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several times she had found that she could not think of a satisfactory reply when she was dealing with Sara. The reason for this was that, somehow, the rest always seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She saw now that they were pricking up their ears interestedly. The truth was, they liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear something more definite about this one, and drew nearer Sara accordingly.

      Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat.

      “Dear me,” she said, “I hope, when you ascend the throne, you won’t forget us!”

      “I won’t,” said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but stood quite still, and stared at her steadily as she saw her take Jessie’s arm and turn away.

      After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as “Princess Sara” whenever they wished to be particularly disdainful, and those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term of affection. No one called her “princess” instead of “Sara,” but her adorers were much pleased with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal boarding school.

      To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia knew very little about it. They were aware that Sara was “kind” to the scullery maid, but they knew nothing of certain delightful moments snatched perilously when, the upstairs rooms being set in order with lightning rapidity, Sara’s sitting room was reached, and the heavy coal box set down with a sigh of joy. At such times stories were told by installments, things of a satisfying nature were either produced and eaten or hastily tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night, when Becky went upstairs to her attic to bed.

      “But I has to eat ‘em careful, miss,” she said once; “‘cos if I leaves crumbs the rats come out to get ‘em.”

      “Rats!” exclaimed Sara, in horror. “Are there RATS there?”

      “Lots of ‘em, miss,” Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner. “There mostly СКАЧАТЬ