7. The Diamond Mines Again

A Little Princess

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

When Sara entered the holly-hung schoolroom in the afternoon, she
did so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Minchin, in her
grandest silk dress, led her by the hand. A manservant followed,
carrying the box containing the Last Doll, a housemaid carried a
second box, and Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third and
wearing a clean apron and a new cap. Sara would have much preferred
to enter in the usual way, but Miss Minchin had sent for her, and,
after an interview in her private sitting room, had expressed her
wishes.

"This is not an ordinary occasion," she said. "I do not desire
that it should be treated as one."

So Sara was led grandly in and felt shy when, on her entry, the
big girls stared at her and touched each other's elbows, and the
little ones began to squirm joyously in their seats.

"Silence, young ladies!" said Miss Minchin, at the murmur which
arose. "James, place the box on the table and remove the lid. Emma,
put yours upon a chair. Becky!" suddenly and severely.

Becky had quite forgotten herself in her excitement, and was
grinning at Lottie, who was wriggling with rapturous expectation. She
almost dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and
her frightened, bobbing curtsy of apology was so funny that Lavinia
and Jessie tittered.

"It is not your place to look at the young ladies," said Miss
Minchin. "You forget yourself. Put your box down."

Becky obeyed with alarmed haste and hastily backed toward the
door.

"You may leave us," Miss Minchin announced to the servants with
a wave of her hand.

Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants
to pass out first. She could not help casting a longing glance at
the box on the table. Something made of blue satin was peeping from
between the folds of tissue paper.

"If you please, Miss Minchin," said Sara, suddenly, "mayn't
Becky stay?"

It was a bold thing to do. Miss Minchin was betrayed into
something like a slight jump. Then she put her eyeglass up, and
gazed at her show pupil disturbedly.

"Becky!" she exclaimed. "My dearest Sara!"

Sara advanced a step toward her.

"I want her because I know she will like to see the presents,"
she explained. "She is a little girl, too, you know."

Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to
the other.

"My dear Sara," she said, "Becky is the scullery maid. Scullery
maids--er--are not little girls."

It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that
light. Scullery maids were machines who carried coal scuttles and
made fires.

"But Becky is," said Sara. "And I know she would enjoy herself.
Please let her stay--because it is my birthday."

Miss Minchin replied with much dignity:

"As you ask it as a birthday favor--she may stay. Rebecca,
thank Miss Sara for her great kindness."

Becky had been backing into the corner, twisting the hem of her
apron in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but
between Sara's eyes and her own there passed a gleam of friendly
understanding, while her words tumbled over each other.

"Oh, if you please, miss! I'm that grateful, miss! I did want
to see the doll, miss, that I did. Thank you, miss. And thank you,
ma'am,"--turning and making an alarmed bob to Miss Minchin-- "for
letting me take the liberty."

Miss Minchin waved her hand again--this time it was in the
direction of the corner near the door.

"Go and stand there," she commanded. "Not too near the young
ladies."

Becky went to her place, grinning. She did not care where she
was sent, so that she might have the luck of being inside the room,
instead of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights
were going on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her
throat ominously and spoke again.

"Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you," she
announced.

"She's going to make a speech," whispered one of the girls. "I
wish it was over."

Sara felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was
probable that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand
in a schoolroom and have a speech made about you.

"You are aware, young ladies," the speech began--for it was a
speech--"that dear Sara is eleven years old today."

"Dear Sara!" murmured Lavinia.

"Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Sara's
birthdays are rather different from other little girls' birthdays.
When she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it
will be her duty to spend in a meritorious manner."

"The diamond mines," giggled Jessie, in a whisper.

Sara did not hear her; but as she stood with her green-gray eyes
fixed steadily on Miss Minchin, she felt herself growing rather hot.
When Miss Minchin talked about money, she felt somehow that she
always hated her--and, of course, it was disrespectful to hate
grown-up people.

"When her dear papa, Captain Crewe, brought her from India and
gave her into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a
jesting way, `I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin.' My
reply was, `Her education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be
such as will adorn the largest fortune.' Sara has become my most
accomplished pupil. Her French and her dancing are a credit to the
seminary. Her manners--which have caused you to call her Princess
Sara--are perfect. Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this
afternoon's party. I hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you
to express your appreciation of it by saying aloud all together,
`Thank you, Sara!'"

The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had done the
morning Sara remembered so well.

"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie
jumped up and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a
curtsy--and it was a very nice one.

"Thank you," she said, "for coming to my party."

"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Minchin. "That is
what a real princess does when the populace applauds her.
Lavinia"--scathingly--"the sound you just made was extremely like a
snort. If you are jealous of your fellow-pupil, I beg you will
express your feelings in some more lady-like manner. Now I will
leave you to enjoy yourselves."

The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence
always had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before
every seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of
theirs; the older ones wasted no time in deserting theirs. There was
a rush toward the boxes. Sara had bent over one of them with a
delighted face.

"These are books, I know," 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 Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends--and
ruin."

Miss Minchin lost her breath.

"Ruin!" she gasped out.

"Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear
friend was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his
own money into it, and all Captain Crewe's. Then the dear friend ran
away--Captain Crewe was already stricken with fever when the news
came. The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving
about his little girl--and didn't leave a penny."

Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a
blow in her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from
the Select Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been
outraged and robbed, and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow
were equally to blame.

"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left nothing!
That Sara will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she
is left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?"

Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make
his own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay.

"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is
certainly left on your hands, ma'am--as she hasn't a relation in the
world that we know of."

Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to
open the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going
on joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments.

"It is monstrous!" she said. "She's in my sitting room at this
moment, dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at
my expense."

"She's giving it at your expense, madam, if she's giving it,"
said Mr. Barrow, calmly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible for
anything. There never was a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune.
Captain Crewe died without paying our last bill--and it was a big
one."

Miss Minchin turned back from the door in increased indignation.
This was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being.

"That is what has happened to me!" she cried. "I was always so
sure of his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses
for the child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her
ridiculous fantastic wardrobe. The child was to have anything she
wanted. She has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've paid for
all of them since the last cheque came."

Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the
story of Miss Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of
his firm clear and related the mere dry facts. He did not feel any
particular sympathy for irate keepers of boarding schools.

"You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked,
"unless you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will
remember you. She hasn't a brass farthing to call her own."

"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it
entirely his duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?"

"There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his
eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is
dead. The child is left a pauper. Nobody is responsible for her but
you."

"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made
responsible!"

Miss Minchin became quite white with rage.

Mr. Barrow turned to go.

"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said un-
interestedly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry
the thing has happened, of course."

"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly
mistaken," Miss Minchin gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I
will turn her into the street!"

If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet
to say quite so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly
brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all
self-control.

Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door.

"I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented; "it wouldn't look
well. Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the
establishment. Pupil bundled out penniless and without friends."

He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He
also knew that Miss Minchin was a business woman, and would be shrewd
enough to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which
would make people speak of her as cruel and hard- hearted.

"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "She's a
clever child, I believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she
grows older."

"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!"
exclaimed Miss Minchin.

"I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow, with a little
sinister smile. "I am sure you will. Good morning!"

He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be
confessed that Miss Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it.
What he had said was quite true. She knew it. She had absolutely
no redress. Her show pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only
a friendless, beggared little girl. Such money as she herself had
advanced was lost and could not be regained.

And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury,
there fell upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred
room, which had actually been given up to the feast. She could at
least stop this.

But as she started toward the door it was opened by Miss Amelia,
who, when she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a
step in alarm.

"What is the matter, sister?" she ejaculated.

Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered:

"Where is Sara Crewe?"

Miss Amelia was bewildered.

"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, she's with the children in your
room, of course."

"Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe?"--in bitter
irony.

"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A black
one?"

"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?"

Miss Amelia began to turn pale.

"No--ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has
only the old black velvet, and she has outgrown it."

"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze,
and put the black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has
done with finery!"

Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry.

"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What can have
happened?"

Miss Minchin wasted no words.

"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a
penny. That spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my
hands."

Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair.

"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I
shall never see a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party
of hers. Go and make her change her frock at once."

"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?"

"This moment!" was the fierce answer. "Don't sit staring like a
goose. Go!"

Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She
knew, in fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to
geese to do a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat
embarrassing thing to go into the midst of a room full of delighted
children, and tell the giver of the feast that she had suddenly been
transformed into a little beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an
old black frock which was too small for her. But the thing must be
done. This was evidently not the time when questions might be
asked.

She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked
quite red. After which she got up and went out of the room, without
venturing to say another word. When her older sister looked and
spoke as she had done just now, the wisest course to pursue was to
obey orders without any comment. Miss Minchin walked across the
room. She spoke to herself aloud without knowing that she was doing
it. During the last year the story of the diamond mines had suggested
all sorts of possibilities to her. Even proprietors of seminaries
might make fortunes in stocks, with the aid of owners of mines. And
now, instead of looking forward to gains, she was left to look back
upon losses.

"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been
pampered as if she were a queen." She was sweeping angrily past the
corner table as she said it, and the next moment she started at the
sound of a loud, sobbing sniff which issued from under the cover.

"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff
was heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the
table cover.

"How dare you!" she cried out. "How dare you! Come out
immediately!"

It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on
one side, and her face was red with repressed crying.

"If you please, 'm--it's me, mum," she explained. "I know I
hadn't ought to. But I was lookin' at the doll, mum--an' I was
frightened when you come in--an' slipped under the table."

"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss
Minchin.

"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin'--I
thought I could slip out without your noticin', but I couldn't an' I
had to stay. But I didn't listen, mum--I wouldn't for nothin'. But I
couldn't help hearin'."

Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful
lady before her. She burst into fresh tears.

"Oh, please, 'm," she said; "I dare say you'll give me warnin,
mum--but I'm so sorry for poor Miss Sara--I'm so sorry!"

"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Minchin.

Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her
cheeks.

"Yes, 'm; I will, 'm," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just
wanted to arst you: Miss Sara--she's been such a rich young lady,
an' she's been waited on, 'and and foot; an' what will she do now,
mum, without no maid? If--if, oh please, would you let me wait on
her after I've done my pots an' kettles? I'd do 'em that quick--if
you'd let me wait on her now she's poor. Oh," breaking out afresh,
"poor little Miss Sara, mum--that was called a princess."

Somehow, she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever. That
the very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this
child--whom she realized more fully than ever that she had never
liked--was too much. She actually stamped her foot.

"No--certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and
on other people, too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave
your place."

Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of
the room and down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down
among her pots and kettles, and wept as if her heart would break.

"It's exactly like the ones in the stories," she wailed. "Them
pore princess ones that was drove into the world."

Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard as she did
when Sara came to her, a few hours later, in response to a message
she had sent her.

Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had
either been a dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had
happened in the life of quite another little girl.

Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had
been removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put
back into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it
always did--all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had
resumed her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside
their party frocks; and this having been done, they had returned to
the schoolroom and huddled together in groups, whispering and talking
excitedly.

"Tell Sara to come to my room," Miss Minchin had said to her
sister. "And explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or
unpleasant scenes."

"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the strangest child I
ever saw. She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she
made none when Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her
what had happened, she just stood quite still and looked at me
without making a sound. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger,
and she went quite pale. When I had finished, she still stood
staring for a few seconds, and then her chin began to shake, and she
turned round and ran out of the room and upstairs. Several of the
other children began to cry, but she did not seem to hear them or to
be alive to anything but just what I was saying. It made me feel
quite queer not to be answered; and when you tell anything sudden and
strange, you expect people will say something--whatever it is."

Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room
after she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself
scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying
over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own,
"My papa is dead! My papa is dead!"

Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watching her from her
chair, and cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear--
papa is dead? He is dead in India--thousands of miles away."

When she came into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her
summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them.
Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had
suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the
rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her
treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked
instead a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure.

She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast-aside black-
velvet frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs
looked long and thin, showing themselves from beneath the brief
skirt. As she had not found a piece of black ribbon, her short,
thick, black hair tumbled loosely about her face and contrasted
strongly with its pallor. She held Emily tightly in one arm, and
Emily was swathed in a piece of black material.

"Put down your doll," said Miss Minchin. "What do you mean by
bringing her here?"

"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I
have. My papa gave her to me."

She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable,
and she did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with
a cold steadiness with which Miss Minchin felt it difficult to
cope--perhaps because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman
thing.

"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You
will have to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful."

Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a
word.

"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on.
"I suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you."

"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I
am quite poor."

"You are a beggar," said Miss Minchin, her temper rising at the
recollection of what all this meant. "It appears that you have no
relations and no home, and no one to take care of you."

For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again
said nothing.

"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin, sharply. "Are
you so stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are
quite alone in the world, and have no one to do anything for you,
unless I choose to keep you here out of charity."

"I understand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a
sound as if she had gulped down something which rose in her throat.
"I understand."

"That doll," cried Miss Minchin, pointing to the splendid
birthday gift seated near--"that ridiculous doll, with all her
nonsensical, extravagant things--I actually paid the bill for
her!"

Sara turned her head toward the chair.

"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little
mournful voice had an odd sound.

"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Minchin. "And she is mine,
not yours. Everything you own is mine."

"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want
it."

If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin
might almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who
liked to domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara's
pale little steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she
quite felt as if her might was being set at naught.

"Don't put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of
thing is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and
your pony will be sent away--your maid will be dismissed. You will
wear your oldest and plainest clothes--your extravagant ones are no
longer suited to your station. You are like Becky--you must work for
your living."

To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's
eyes--a shade of relief.

"Can I work?" she said. "If I can work it will not matter so
much. What can I do?"

"You can do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a
sharp child, and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful
I may let you stay here. You speak French well, and you can help
with the younger children."

"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I can
teach them. I like them, and they like me."

"Don't talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss
Minchin. "You will have to do more than teach the little ones. You
will run errands and help in the kitchen as well as in the
schoolroom. If you don't please me, you will be sent away. Remember
that. Now go."

Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young
soul, she was thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to
leave the room.

"Stop!" said Miss Minchin. "Don't you intend to thank me?"

Sara paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her
breast.

"What for?" she said.

"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my
kindness in giving you a home."

Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest
heaved up and down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce
way.

"You are not kind," she said. "You are not kind, and it is not
a home." And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss
Minchin could stop her or do anything but stare after her with stony
anger.

She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she
held Emily tightly against her side.

"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could
speak--if she could speak!"

She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with
her cheek upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think
and think and think. But just before she reached the landing Miss
Amelia came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood
before it, looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt
secretly ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do.

"You--you are not to go in there," she said.

"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace.

"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a
little.

Somehow, all at once, Sara understood. She realized that this
was the beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of.

"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice
did not shake.

"You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky."

Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She
turned, and mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was
narrow, and covered with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if
she were walking away and leaving far behind her the world in which
that other child, who no longer seemed herself, had lived. This
child, in her short, tight old frock, climbing the stairs to the
attic, was quite a different creature.

When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a
dreary little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and
looked about her.

Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and
was whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in
places. There was a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed
covered with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much
worn to be used downstairs had been sent up. Under the skylight in
the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky,
there stood an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat
down. She seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across
her knees and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and
sat there, her little black head resting on the black draperies, not
saying one word, not making one sound.

And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the
door-- such a low, humble one that she did not at first hear it, and,
indeed, was not roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a
poor tear-smeared face appeared peeping round it. It was Becky's
face, and Becky had been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her
eyes with her kitchen apron until she looked strange indeed.

"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you
allow me--jest to come in?"

Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a
smile, and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through
the loving mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes--her face looked
more like a child's not so much too old for her years. She held out
her hand and gave a little sob.

"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only
two little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is.
There's no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore."

Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her
breast, kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain.

"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken.
"Whats'ever 'appens to you--whats'ever--you'd be a princess all the
same--an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different."