The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ she said.

      The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked aghast.

      “Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?” she exclaimed. “Why, he’s as bad as mine. Don’t open them, Sara.”

      “I like them,” Sara laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When she took out the Last Doll it was so magnificent that the children uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it in breathless rapture.

      “She is almost as big as Lottie,” someone gasped.

      Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling.

      “She’s dressed for the theater,” said Lavinia. “Her cloak is lined with ermine.”

      “Oh,” cried Ermengarde, darting forward, “she has an opera-glass in her hand—a blue-and-gold one!”

      “Here is her trunk,” said Sara. “Let us open it and look at her things.”

      She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded clamoring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their contents. Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were lace collars and silk stockings and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel case containing a necklace and a tiara which looked quite as if they were made of real diamonds; there was a long sealskin and muff, there were ball dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses; there were hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie forgot that they were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight and caught up things to look at them.

      “Suppose,” Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, black-velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these splendors—“suppose she understands human talk and feels proud of being admired.”

      “You are always supposing things,” said Lavinia, and her air was very superior.

      “I know I am,” answered Sara, undisturbedly. “I like it. There is nothing so nice as supposing. It’s almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real.”

      “It’s all very well to suppose things if you have everything,” said Lavinia. “Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived in a garret?”

      Sara stopped arranging the Last Doll’s ostrich plumes, and looked thoughtful.

      “I BELIEVE I could,” she said. “If one was a beggar, one would have to suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn’t be easy.”

      She often thought afterward how strange it was that just as she had finished saying this—just at that very moment—Miss Amelia came into the room.

      “Sara,” she said, “your papa’s solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see Miss Minchin, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments are laid in her parlor, you had all better come and have your feast now, so that my sister can have her interview here in the schoolroom.”

      Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many pairs of eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into decorum, and then, with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away, leaving the Last Doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and coats hung upon chair backs, piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their seats.

      Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties—it really was an indiscretion.

      “Go back to your work, Becky,” Miss Amelia had said; but she had stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while she stood looking at them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the threshold, and, being smitten with terror at the thought of being accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted under the table, which hid her by its tablecloth.

      Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression.

      She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair.

      “Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow,” she said.

      Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by the Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright and returned his gaze indifferently.

      “A hundred pounds,” Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. “All expensive material, and made at a Parisian modiste’s. He spent money lavishly enough, that young man.”

      Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her best patron and was a liberty.

      Even solicitors had no right to take liberties.

      “I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow,” she said stiffly. “I do not understand.”

      “Birthday presents,” said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, “to a child eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it.”

      Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly.

      “Captain Crewe is a man of fortune,” she said. “The diamond mines alone—”

      Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. “Diamond mines!” he broke out. “There are none! Never were!”

      Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair.

      “What!” she cried. “What do you mean?”

      “At any rate,” answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, “it would have been much better if there never had been any.”

      “Any diamond mines?” ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her.

      “Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth,” said Mr. Barrow. “When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend’s diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends want his money to put into. The late Captain Crewe—”

      Here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp.

      “The LATE Captain Crewe!” she cried out. “The LATE! You don’t come to tell me that Captain Crewe is—”

      “He’s dead, ma’am,” Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. “Died of jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business troubles, and the business troubles might not have put an end to him if the jungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!”

      Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken filled her with alarm.

      “What WERE his business troubles?” she said. “What WERE they?”

      “Diamond mines,” answered СКАЧАТЬ