prompt:
Chapter: One of the Populace

The winter was a wretched one.  There were days on which Sara tramped
through snow when she went on her errands; there were worse days when
the snow melted and combined itself with mud to form slush; there were
others when the fog was so thick that the lamps in the street were
lighted all day and London looked as it had looked the afternoon,
several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thoroughfares
with Sara tucked up on its seat, leaning against her father's shoulder.
On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked
delightfully cozy and alluring, and the study in which the Indian
gentleman sat glowed with warmth and rich color.  But the attic was
dismal beyond words.  There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look
at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara.  The clouds hung
low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping
heavy rain.  At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no
special fog, the daylight was at an end.  If it was necessary to go to
her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to light a candle.  The women
in the kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered
than ever. Becky was driven like a little slave.

"'Twarn't for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night when she
had crept into the attic--"'twarn't for you, an' the Bastille, an'
bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die.  That there does
seem real now, doesn't it?  The missus is more like the head jailer
every day she lives.  I can jest see them big keys you say she carries.
The cook she's like one of the under-jailers.  Tell me some more,
please, miss--tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've dug under the
walls."

"I'll tell you something warmer," shivered Sara.  "Get your coverlet
and wrap it round you, and I'll get mine, and we will huddle close
together on the bed, and I'll tell you about the tropical forest where
the Indian gentleman's monkey used to live.  When I see him sitting on
the table near the window and looking out into the street with that
mournful expression, I always feel sure he is thinking about the
tropical forest where he used to swing by his tail from coconut trees.
I wonder who caught him, and if he left a family behind who had
depended on him for coconuts."

"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways, even
the Bastille is sort of heatin' when you gets to tellin' about it."

"That is because it makes you think of something else," said Sara,
wrapping the coverlet round her until only her small dark face was to
be seen looking out of it.  "I've noticed this.  What you have to do
with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of
something else."

"Can you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes.

Sara knitted her brows a moment.

"Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't," she said stoutly. "But when I
CAN I'm all right.  And what I believe is that we always could--if we
practiced enough.  I've been practicing a good deal lately, and it's
beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are
horrible--just horrible--I think as hard as ever I can of being a
princess.  I say to myself, 'I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and
because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable.'
You don't know how it makes you forget"--with a laugh.

She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else,
and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she was a
princess.  But one of the strongest tests she was ever put to came on a
certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, would never
quite fade out of her memory even in the years to come.

For several days it had rained continuously; the streets were chilly
and sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist; there was mud
everywhere--sticky London mud--and over everything the pall of drizzle
and fog. Of course there were several long and tiresome errands to be
done--there always were on days like this--and Sara was sent out again
and again, until her shabby clothes were damp through.  The absurd old
feathers on her forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd than ever,
and her downtrodden shoes were so wet that they could not hold any more
water.  Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner, because
Miss Minchin had chosen to punish her.  She was so cold and hungry and
tired that her face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some
kind-hearted person passing her in the street glanced at her with
sudden sympathy.  But she did not know that. She hurried on, trying to
make her mind think of something else. It was really very necessary.
Her way of doing it was to "pretend" and "suppose" with all the
strength that was left in her. But really this time it was harder than
she had ever found it, and once or twice she thought it almost made her
more cold and hungry instead of less so.  But she persevered
obstinately, and as the muddy water squelched through her broken shoes
and the wind seemed trying to drag her thin jacket from her, she talked
to herself as she walked, though she did not speak aloud or even move
her lips.

"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought.  "Suppose I had good shoes
and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And
suppose--suppose--just when I was near a baker's where they sold hot
buns, I should find sixpence--which belonged to nobody. SUPPOSE if I
did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns and eat
them all without stopping."

Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes.

It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sara.  She had to cross
the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud was
dreadful--she almost had to wade.  She picked her way as carefully as
she could, but she could not save herself much; only, in picking her
way, she had to look down at her feet and the mud, and in looking
down--just as she reached the pavement--she saw something shining in
the gutter.  It was actually a piece of silver--a tiny piece trodden
upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough left to shine a little.
Not quite a sixpence, but the next thing to it--a fourpenny piece.

In one second it was in her cold little red-and-blue hand.

"Oh," she gasped, "it is true!  It is true!"

And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the shop
directly facing her.  And it was a baker's shop, and a cheerful, stout,
motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into the window a tray of
delicious newly baked hot buns, fresh from the oven--large, plump,
shiny buns, with currants in them.

It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds--the shock, and the
sight of the buns, and the delightful odors of warm bread floating up
through the baker's cellar window.

She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money.  It
had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was
completely lost in the stream of passing people who crowded and jostled
each other all day long.

"But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything," she
said to herself, rather faintly.  So she crossed the pavement and put
her wet foot on the step.  As she did so she saw something that made
her stop.

It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself--a little figure
which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare,
red muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner
was trying to cover them were not long enough.  Above the rags appeared
a shock head of tangled hair, and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry
eyes.

Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a
sudden sympathy.

"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the
populace--and she is hungrier than I am."

The child--this "one of the populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled
herself aside a little, so as to give her room to pass.  She was used
to being made to give room to everybody.  She knew that if a policeman
chanced to see her he would tell her to "move on."

Sara clutched her little fourpenny piece and hesitated for a few
seconds.  Then she spoke to her.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more.

"Ain't I jist?" she said in a hoarse voice.  "Jist ain't I?"

"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara.

"No dinner," more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. "Nor yet no
bre'fast--nor yet no supper.  No nothin'.

"Since when?" asked Sara.

"Dunno.  Never got nothin' today--nowhere.  I've axed an' axed."

Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint.  But those queer
little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to
herself, though she was sick at heart.

"If I'm a princess," she was saying, "if I'm a princess--when they were
poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the
populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves. They
always shared.  Buns are a penny each.  If it had been sixpence I could
have eaten six.  It won't be enough for either of us. But it will be
better than nothing."

"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar child.

She went into the shop.  It was warm and smelled deliciously.  The
woman was just going to put some more hot buns into the window.

"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver
fourpence?"  And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her.

The woman looked at it and then at her--at her intense little face and
draggled, once fine clothes.

"Bless us, no," she answered.  "Did you find it?"

"Yes," said Sara.  "In the gutter."

"Keep it, then," said the woman.  "It may have been there for a week,
and goodness knows who lost it.  YOU could never find out."

"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I would ask you."

"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and
good-natured all at once.

"Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara glance at
the buns.

"Four buns, if you please," said Sara.  "Those at a penny each."

The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag.

Sara noticed that she put in six.

"I said four, if you please," she explained.  "I have only fourpence."

"I'll throw in two for makeweight," said the woman with her
good-natured look.  "I dare say you can eat them sometime. Aren't you
hungry?"

A mist rose before Sara's eyes.

"Yes," she answered.  "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you
for your kindness; and"--she was going to add--"there is a child
outside who is hungrier than I am."  But just at that moment two or
three customers came in at once, and each one seemed in a hurry, so she
could only thank the woman again and go out.

The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step.  She
looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags.  She was staring straight
before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara saw her suddenly
draw the back of her roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away
the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from
under her lids.  She was muttering to herself.

Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had
already warmed her own cold hands a little.

"See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is nice and
hot.  Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry."

The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good
luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the bun and began to
cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites.

"Oh, my!  Oh, my!"  Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight. "OH
my!"

Sara took out three more buns and put them down.

The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful.

"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself.  "She's starving."
But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not
starving," she said--and she put down the fifth.

The little ravening London savage was still snatching and devouring
when she turned away.  She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if
she had ever been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a
poor little wild animal.

"Good-bye," said Sara.

When she reached the other side of the street she looked back.  The
child had a bun in each hand and had stopped in the middle of a bite to
watch her.  Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another
stare--a curious lingering stare--jerked her shaggy head in response,
and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even
finish the one she had begun.

At that moment the baker-woman looked out of her shop window.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed.  "If that young un hasn't given her
buns to a beggar child!  It wasn't because she didn't want them,
either.  Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to
know what she did it for."

She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her
curiosity got the better of her.  She went to the door and spoke to the
beggar child.

"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her.  The child nodded her head
toward Sara's vanishing figure.

"What did she say?" inquired the woman.

"Axed me if I was 'ungry," replied the hoarse voice.

"What did you say?"

"Said I was jist."

"And then she came in and got the buns, and gave them to you, did she?"

The child nodded.

"How many?"

"Five."

The woman thought it over.

"Left just one for herself," she said in a low voice.  "And she could
have eaten the whole six--I saw it in her eyes."

She looked after the little draggled far-away figure and felt more
disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a
day.

"I wish she hadn't gone so quick," she said.  "I'm blest if she
shouldn't have had a dozen."  Then she turned to the child.

"Are you hungry yet?" she said.

"I'm allus hungry," was the answer, "but 't ain't as bad as it was."

"Come in here," said the woman, and she held open the shop door.

The child got up and shuffled in.  To be invited into a warm place full
of bread seemed an incredible thing.  She did not know what was going
to happen.  She did not care, even.

"Get yourself warm," said the woman, pointing to a fire in the tiny
back room.  "And look here; when you are hard up for a bit of bread,
you can come in here and ask for it.  I'm blest if I won't give it to
you for that young one's sake."

     *    *    *

Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun.  At all events, it was
very hot, and it was better than nothing.  As she walked along she
broke off small pieces and ate them slowly to make them last longer.

"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a
whole dinner.  I should be overeating myself if I went on like this."

It was dark when she reached the square where the Select Seminary was
situated.  The lights in the houses were all lighted. The blinds were
not yet drawn in the windows of the room where she nearly always caught
glimpses of members of the Large Family. Frequently at this hour she
could see the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency sitting in a big
chair, with a small swarm round him, talking, laughing, perching on the
arms of his seat or on his knees or leaning against them.  This evening
the swarm was about him, but he was not seated.  On the contrary, there
was a good deal of excitement going on.  It was evident that a journey
was to be taken, and it was Mr. Montmorency who was to take it.  A
brougham stood before the door, and a big portmanteau had been strapped
upon it. The children were dancing about, chattering and hanging on to
their father.  The pretty rosy mother was standing near him, talking as
if she was asking final questions.  Sara paused a moment to see the
little ones lifted up and kissed and the bigger ones bent over and
kissed also.

"I wonder if he will stay away long," she thought.  "The portmanteau is
rather big.  Oh, dear, how they will miss him!  I shall miss him
myself--even though he doesn't know I am alive."

When the door opened she moved away--remembering the sixpence--but she
saw the traveler come out and stand against the background of the
warmly-lighted hall, the older children still hovering about him.

"Will Moscow be covered with snow?" said the little girl Janet.  "Will
there be ice everywhere?"

"Shall you drive in a drosky?" cried another.  "Shall you see the Czar?"

"I will write and tell you all about it," he answered, laughing.  "And
I will send you pictures of muzhiks and things.  Run into the house. It
is a hideous damp night.  I would rather stay with you than go to
Moscow.  Good night!  Good night, duckies!  God bless you!" And he ran
down the steps and jumped into the brougham.

"If you find the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence,
jumping up and down on the door mat.

Then they went in and shut the door.

"Did you see," said Janet to Nora, as they went back to the room--"the
little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar was passing?  She looked all cold and
wet, and I saw her turn her head over her shoulder and look at us.
Mamma says her clothes always look as if they had been given her by
someone who was quite rich--someone who only let her have them because
they were too shabby to wear.  The people at the school always send her
out on errands on the horridest days and nights there are."

Sara crossed the square to Miss Minchin's area steps, feeling faint and
shaky.

"I wonder who the little girl is," she thought--"the little girl he is
going to look for."

And she went down the area steps, lugging her basket and finding it
very heavy indeed, as the father of the Large Family drove quickly on
his way to the station to take the train which was to carry him to
Moscow, where he was to make his best efforts to search for the lost
little daughter of Captain Crewe.

What Melchisedec Heard and Saw

On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strange thing happened in
the attic.  Only Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was so much
alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there,
and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with
great caution to watch what was going on.

The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it in the
early morning.  The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of
the rain upon the slates and the skylight.  Melchisedec had, in fact,
found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect
silence reigned, he decided to come out and reconnoiter, though
experience taught him that Sara would not return for some time.  He had
been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally
unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his
attention was attracted by a sound on the roof.  He stopped to listen
with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that something was moving
on the roof.  It was approaching the skylight; it reached the skylight.
The skylight was being mysteriously opened.  A dark face peered into
the attic; then another face appeared behind it, and both looked in
with signs of caution and interest.  Two men were outside on the roof,
and were making silent preparations to enter through the skylight
itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was a young man who was the
Indian gentleman's secretary; but of course Melchisedec did not know
this. He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy
of the attic; and as the one with the dark face let himself down
through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not
make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turned tail and fled
precipitately back to his hole.  He was frightened to death. He had
ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would never throw anything
but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low,
coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain
near.  He lay close and flat near the entrance of his home, just
managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much
he understood of the talk he heard I am not in the least able to say;
but, even if he had understood it all, he would probably have remained
greatly mystified.

The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as
noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last glimpse of
Melchisedec's vanishing tail.

"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper.

"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There are
many in the walls."

"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man.  "It is a wonder the child is not
terrified of them."

Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands.  He also smiled respectfully.
He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara, though she had
only spoken to him once.

"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he answered.
"She is not as other children.  I see her when she does not see me. I
slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is
safe.  I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She
stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to
her.  The sparrows come at her call.  The rat she has fed and tamed in
her loneliness.  The poor slave of the house comes to her for comfort.
There is a little child who comes to her in secret; there is one older
who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might.  This I
have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the
house--who is an evil woman--she is treated like a pariah; but she has
the bearing of a child who is of the blood of kings!"

"You seem to know a great deal about her," the secretary said.

"All her life each day I know," answered Ram Dass.  "Her going out I
know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her coldness
and her hunger.  I know when she is alone until midnight, learning from
her books; I know when her secret friends steal to her and she is
happier--as children can be, even in the midst of poverty--because they
come and she may laugh and talk with them in whispers. If she were ill
I should know, and I would come and serve her if it might be done."

"You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that she
will not return and surprise us.  She would be frightened if she found
us here, and the Sahib Carrisford's plan would be spoiled."

Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to it.

"None mount here but herself, Sahib," he said.  "She has gone out with
her basket and may be gone for hours.  If I stand here I can hear any
step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs."

The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast pocket.

"Keep your ears open," he said; and he began to walk slowly and softly
round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his tablet as he
looked at things.

First he went to the narrow bed.  He pressed his hand upon the mattress
and uttered an exclamation.

"As hard as a stone," he said.  "That will have to be altered some day
when she is out.  A special journey can be made to bring it across. It
cannot be done tonight."  He lifted the covering and examined the one
thin pillow.

"Coverlet dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and ragged," he
said.  "What a bed for a child to sleep in--and in a house which calls
itself respectable!  There has not been a fire in that grate for many a
day," glancing at the rusty fireplace.

"Never since I have seen it," said Ram Dass.  "The mistress of the
house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be cold."

The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet.  He looked up from it
as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket.

"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said.  "Who planned it?"

Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance.

"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said; "though
it was naught but a fancy.  I am fond of this child; we are both
lonely.  It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends.
Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The
vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had
comforts in it.  She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew
cheered and warmed as she spoke.  Then she came to this fancy; and the
next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to
amuse him.  It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased the Sahib.  To
hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested
in her and asked questions.  At last he began to please himself with
the thought of making her visions real things."

"You think that it can be done while she sleeps?  Suppose she
awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that whatsoever
the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well
as the Sahib Carrisford's.

"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied; "and
children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones.  I could have entered
this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon
her pillow.  If the other bearer passes to me the things through the
window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she awakens she will
think a magician has been here."

He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the
secretary smiled back at him.

"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said.  "Only an
Oriental could have planned it.  It does not belong to London fogs."

They did not remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who,
as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their
movements and whispers ominous.  The young secretary seemed interested
in everything.  He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace,
the broken footstool, the old table, the walls--which last he touched
with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that
a number of old nails had been driven in various places.

"You can hang things on them," he said.

Ram Dass smiled mysteriously.

"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered, bringing with me
small, sharp nails which can be pressed into the wall without blows
from a hammer.  I placed many in the plaster where I may need them.
They are ready."

The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round him as he
thrust his tablets back into his pocket.

"I think I have made notes enough; we can go now," he said. "The Sahib
Carrisford has a warm heart.  It is a thousand pities that he has not
found the lost child."

"If he should find her his strength would be restored to him," said Ram
Dass.  "His God may lead her to him yet."

Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had
entered it.  And, after he was quite sure they had gone, Melchisedec
was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes felt it safe
to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the hope that even
such alarming human beings as these might have chanced to carry crumbs
in their pockets and drop one or two of them.

The Magic

When Sara had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass closing
the shutters, and caught her glimpse of this room also.

"It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside," was the
thought which crossed her mind.

There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian
gentleman was sitting before it.  His head was resting in his hand, and
he looked as lonely and unhappy as ever.

"Poor man!" said Sara.  "I wonder what you are supposing."

And this was what he was "supposing" at that very moment.

"Suppose," he was thinking, "suppose--even if Carmichael traces the
people to Moscow--the little girl they took from Madame Pascal's school
in Paris is NOT the one we are in search of.  Suppose she proves to be
quite a different child.  What steps shall I take next?"

When Sara went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come
downstairs to scold the cook.

"Where have you wasted your time?" she demanded.  "You have been out
for hours."

"It was so wet and muddy," Sara answered, "it was hard to walk, because
my shoes were so bad and slipped about."

"Make no excuses," said Miss Minchin, "and tell no falsehoods."

Sara went in to the cook.  The cook had received a severe lecture and
was in a fearful temper as a result.  She was only too rejoiced to have
someone to vent her rage on, and Sara was a convenience, as usual.

"Why didn't you stay all night?" she snapped.

Sara laid her purchases on the table.

"Here are the things," she said.

The cook looked them over, grumbling.  She was in a very savage humor
indeed.

"May I have something to eat?"  Sara asked rather faintly.

"Tea's over and done with," was the answer.  "Did you expect me to keep
it hot for you?"

Sara stood silent for a second.

"I had no dinner," she said next, and her voice was quite low.  She
made it low because she was afraid it would tremble.

"There's some bread in the pantry," said the cook.  "That's all you'll
get at this time of day."

Sara went and found the bread.  It was old and hard and dry. The cook
was in too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with it.  It was
always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sara.  Really, it was hard
for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her
attic.  She often found them long and steep when she was tired; but
tonight it seemed as if she would never reach the top.  Several times
she was obliged to stop to rest.  When she reached the top landing she
was glad to see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door.
That meant that Ermengarde had managed to creep up to pay her a visit.
There was some comfort in that. It was better than to go into the room
alone and find it empty and desolate.  The mere presence of plump,
comfortable Ermengarde, wrapped in her red shawl, would warm it a
little.

Yes; there Ermengarde was when she opened the door.  She was sitting in
the middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely under her. She had
never become intimate with Melchisedec and his family, though they
rather fascinated her.  When she found herself alone in the attic she
always preferred to sit on the bed until Sara arrived. She had, in
fact, on this occasion had time to become rather nervous, because
Melchisedec had appeared and sniffed about a good deal, and once had
made her utter a repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs and,
while he looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction.

"Oh, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come.  Melchy WOULD
sniff about so.  I tried to coax him to go back, but he wouldn't for
such a long time.  I like him, you know; but it does frighten me when
he sniffs right at me.  Do you think he ever WOULD jump?"

"No," answered Sara.

Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to look at her.

"You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you are quite pale."

"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool.  "Oh,
there's Melchisedec, poor thing.  He's come to ask for his supper."

Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for
her footstep.  Sara was quite sure he knew it.  He came forward with an
affectionate, expectant expression as Sara put her hand in her pocket
and turned it inside out, shaking her head.

"I'm very sorry," she said.  "I haven't one crumb left.  Go home,
Melchisedec, and tell your wife there was nothing in my pocket. I'm
afraid I forgot because the cook and Miss Minchin were so cross."

Melchisedec seemed to understand.  He shuffled resignedly, if not
contentedly, back to his home.

"I did not expect to see you tonight, Ermie," Sara said.  Ermengarde
hugged herself in the red shawl.

"Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old aunt," she
explained.  "No one else ever comes and looks into the bedrooms after
we are in bed.  I could stay here until morning if I wanted to."

She pointed toward the table under the skylight.  Sara had not looked
toward it as she came in.  A number of books were piled upon it.
Ermengarde's gesture was a dejected one.

"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said.  "There they are."

Sara looked round and got up at once.  She ran to the table, and
picking up the top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For the
moment she forgot her discomforts.

"Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful!  Carlyle's French Revolution. I
have SO wanted to read that!"

"I haven't," said Ermengarde.  "And papa will be so cross if I don't.
He'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays.
What SHALL I do?"

Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited
flush on her cheeks.

"Look here," she cried, "if you'll lend me these books, _I'll_ read
them--and tell you everything that's in them afterward--and I'll tell
it so that you will remember it, too."

"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde.  "Do you think you can?"

"I know I can," Sara answered.  "The little ones always remember what I
tell them."

"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you'll do
that, and make me remember, I'll--I'll give you anything."

"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara.  "I want your
books--I want them!"  And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved.

"Take them, then," said Ermengarde.  "I wish I wanted them--but I
don't. I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."

Sara was opening one book after the other.  "What are you going to tell
your father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind.

"Oh, he needn't know," answered Ermengarde.  "He'll think I've read
them."

Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly.  "That's almost like
telling lies," she said.  "And lies--well, you see, they are not only
wicked--they're VULGAR. Sometimes"--reflectively--"I've thought perhaps
I might do something wicked--I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill
Miss Minchin, you know, when she was ill-treating me--but I COULDN'T be
vulgar.  Why can't you tell your father _I_ read them?"

"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little discouraged by
this unexpected turn of affairs.

"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara.  "And if I can tell
it to you in an easy way and make you remember it, I should think he
would like that."

"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful Ermengarde.
"You would if you were my father."

"It's not your fault that--" began Sara.  She pulled herself up and
stopped rather suddenly.  She had been going to say, "It's not your
fault that you are stupid."

"That what?"  Ermengarde asked.

"That you can't learn things quickly," amended Sara.  "If you can't,
you can't. If I can--why, I can; that's all."

She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let her
feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn anything
at once, and not being able to learn anything at all.  As she looked at
her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her.

"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't
everything.  To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.  If Miss
Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she is now, she'd
still be a detestable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of
clever people have done harm and have been wicked. Look at
Robespierre--"

She stopped and examined Ermengarde's countenance, which was beginning
to look bewildered.  "Don't you remember?" she demanded. "I told you
about him not long ago.  I believe you've forgotten."

"Well, I don't remember ALL of it," admitted Ermengarde.

"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet things
and wrap myself in the coverlet and tell you over again."

She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against the wall,
and she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of slippers.  Then she
jumped on the bed, and drawing the coverlet about her shoulders, sat
with her arms round her knees.  "Now, listen," she said.

She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution, and told
such stories of it that Ermengarde's eyes grew round with alarm and she
held her breath.  But though she was rather terrified, there was a
delightful thrill in listening, and she was not likely to forget
Robespierre again, or to have any doubts about the Princesse de
Lamballe.

"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara
explained.  "And she had beautiful floating blonde hair; and when I
think of her, I never see her head on her body, but always on a pike,
with those furious people dancing and howling."

It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had made,
and for the present the books were to be left in the attic.

"Now let's tell each other things," said Sara.  "How are you getting on
with your French lessons?"

"Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you
explained the conjugations.  Miss Minchin could not understand why I
did my exercises so well that first morning."

Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees.

"She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her sums so well," she
said; "but it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help her." She
glanced round the room.  "The attic would be rather nice--if it wasn't
so dreadful," she said, laughing again.  "It's a good place to pretend
in."

The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the sometimes
almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she had not a
sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare
occasions that she could reach Sara's room she only saw the side of it
which was made exciting by things which were "pretended" and stories
which were told.  Her visits partook of the character of adventures;
and though sometimes Sara looked rather pale, and it was not to be
denied that she had grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not
admit of complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was
almost ravenous with hunger, as she was tonight.  She was growing
rapidly, and her constant walking and running about would have given
her a keen appetite even if she had had abundant and regular meals of a
much more nourishing nature than the unappetizing, inferior food
snatched at such odd times as suited the kitchen convenience. She was
growing used to a certain gnawing feeling in her young stomach.

"I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and weary
march," she often said to herself.  She liked the sound of the phrase,
"long and weary march."  It made her feel rather like a soldier. She
had also a quaint sense of being a hostess in the attic.

"If I lived in a castle," she argued, "and Ermengarde was the lady of
another castle, and came to see me, with knights and squires and
vassals riding with her, and pennons flying, when I heard the clarions
sounding outside the drawbridge I should go down to receive her, and I
should spread feasts in the banquet hall and call in minstrels to sing
and play and relate romances.  When she comes into the attic I can't
spread feasts, but I can tell stories, and not let her know
disagreeable things.  I dare say poor chatelaines had to do that in
time of famine, when their lands had been pillaged." She was a proud,
brave little chatelaine, and dispensed generously the one hospitality
she could offer--the dreams she dreamed--the visions she saw--the
imaginings which were her joy and comfort.

So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as
well as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered
if her hunger would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as
if she had never been quite so hungry before.

"I wish I was as thin as you, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly.  "I
believe you are thinner than you used to be.  Your eyes look so big,
and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your elbow!"

Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up.

"I always was a thin child," she said bravely, "and I always had big
green eyes."

"I love your queer eyes," said Ermengarde, looking into them with
affectionate admiration.  "They always look as if they saw such a long
way.  I love them--and I love them to be green--though they look black
generally."

"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the dark with
them--because I have tried, and I couldn't--I wish I could."

It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight
which neither of them saw.  If either of them had chanced to turn and
look, she would have been startled by the sight of a dark face which
peered cautiously into the room and disappeared as quickly and almost
as silently as it had appeared.  Not QUITE as silently, however.  Sara,
who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof.

"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said.  "It wasn't scratchy
enough."

"What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled.

"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara.

"N-no," Ermengarde faltered.  "Did you?" {another ed. has "No-no,"}

"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did.  It sounded as if
something was on the slates--something that dragged softly."

"What could it be?" said Ermengarde.  "Could it be--robbers?"

"No," Sara began cheerfully.  "There is nothing to steal--"

She broke off in the middle of her words.  They both heard the sound
that checked her.  It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below,
and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice.  Sara sprang off the bed, and
put out the candle.

"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the darkness.
"She is making her cry."

"Will she come in here?"  Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken.

"No. She will think I am in bed.  Don't stir."

It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs.
Sara could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she
was angry enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it
sounded as if she was driving Becky before her.

"You impudent, dishonest child!" they heard her say.  "Cook tells me
she has missed things repeatedly."

"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing.  "I was 'ungry enough, but 't
warn't me--never!"

"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice.
"Picking and stealing!  Half a meat pie, indeed!"

"'T warn't me," wept Becky.  "I could 'ave eat a whole un--but I never
laid a finger on it."

Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs.
The meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became
apparent that she boxed Becky's ears.

"Don't tell falsehoods," she said.  "Go to your room this instant."

Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in
her slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her
door shut, and knew that she threw herself upon her bed.

"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her pillow. "An'
I never took a bite.  'Twas cook give it to her policeman."

Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness.  She was
clenching her little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her
outstretched hands.  She could scarcely stand still, but she dared not
move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs and all was still.

"The wicked, cruel thing!" she burst forth.  "The cook takes things
herself and then says Becky steals them.  She DOESN'T!  She DOESN'T!
She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash barrel!"
She pressed her hands hard against her face and burst into passionate
little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed
by it.  Sara was crying!  The unconquerable Sara! It seemed to denote
something new--some mood she had never known. Suppose--suppose--a new
dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow, little mind all
at once.  She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the
table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle.
When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara, with her
new thought growing to definite fear in her eyes.

"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, "are--are--you
never told me--I don't want to be rude, but--are YOU ever hungry?"

It was too much just at that moment.  The barrier broke down.  Sara
lifted her face from her hands.

"Yes," she said in a new passionate way.  "Yes, I am.  I'm so hungry
now that I could almost eat you.  And it makes it worse to hear poor
Becky.  She's hungrier than I am."

Ermengarde gasped.

"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully.  "And I never knew!"

"I didn't want you to know," Sara said.  "It would have made me feel
like a street beggar.  I know I look like a street beggar."

"No, you don't--you don't!" Ermengarde broke in.  "Your clothes are a
little queer--but you couldn't look like a street beggar.  You haven't
a street-beggar face."

"A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity," said Sara, with a
short little laugh in spite of herself.  "Here it is." And she pulled
out the thin ribbon from her neck.  "He wouldn't have given me his
Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I needed it."

Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of
them.  It made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their
eyes.

"Who was he?" asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had not
been a mere ordinary silver sixpence.

"He was a darling little thing going to a party," said Sara. "He was
one of the Large Family, the little one with the round legs--the one I
call Guy Clarence.  I suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas
presents and hampers full of cakes and things, and he could see I had
nothing."

Ermengarde gave a little jump backward.  The last sentences had
recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden
inspiration.

"Oh, Sara!" she cried.  "What a silly thing I am not to have thought of
it!"

"Of what?"

"Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry.  "This very
afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box.  It is full of good things.  I
never touched it, I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so
bothered about papa's books."  Her words began to tumble over each
other.  "It's got cake in it, and little meat pies, and jam tarts and
buns, and oranges and red-currant wine, and figs and chocolate.  I'll
creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now."

Sara almost reeled.  When one is faint with hunger the mention of food
has sometimes a curious effect.  She clutched Ermengarde's arm.

"Do you think--you COULD?" she ejaculated.

"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door--opened
it softly--put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she
went back to Sara.  "The lights are out.  Everybody's in bed. I can
creep--and creep--and no one will hear."

It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden
light sprang into Sara's eyes.

"Ermie!" she said.  "Let us PRETEND! Let us pretend it's a party! And
oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?"

"Yes!  Yes!  Let us knock on the wall now.  The jailer won't hear."

Sara went to the wall.  Through it she could hear poor Becky crying
more softly.  She knocked four times.

"That means, 'Come to me through the secret passage under the wall,'
she explained.  'I have something to communicate.'"

Five quick knocks answered her.

"She is coming," she said.

Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky appeared. Her
eyes were red and her cap was sliding off, and when she caught sight of
Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron.

"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde.

"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because she is
going to bring a box of good things up here to us."

Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such excitement.

"To eat, miss?" she said.  "Things that's good to eat?"

"Yes," answered Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party."

"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in Ermengarde.
"I'll go this minute!"

She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she dropped
her red shawl and did not know it had fallen.  No one saw it for a
minute or so.  Becky was too much overpowered by the good luck which
had befallen her.

"Oh, miss! oh, miss!" she gasped; "I know it was you that asked her to
let me come.  It--it makes me cry to think of it."  And she went to
Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly.

But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform
her world for her.  Here in the attic--with the cold night
outside--with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely passed--with
the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's eyes not yet
faded--this simple, cheerful thing had happened like a thing of magic.

She caught her breath.

"Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before things get
to the very worst.  It is as if the Magic did it.  If I could only just
remember that always.  The worst thing never QUITE comes."

She gave Becky a little cheerful shake.

"No, no!  You mustn't cry!" she said.  "We must make haste and set the
table."

"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room.  "What'll we
set it with?"

Sara looked round the attic, too.

"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing.

That moment she saw something and pounced upon it.  It was Ermengarde's
red shawl which lay upon the floor.

"Here's the shawl," she cried.  "I know she won't mind it. It will make
such a nice red tablecloth."

They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it.  Red is
a wonderfully kind and comfortable color.  It began to make the room
look furnished directly.

"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara.  "We must
pretend there is one!"

Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration.  The
rug was laid down already.

"How soft and thick it is!" she said, with the little laugh which Becky
knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again
delicately, as if she felt something under it.

"Yes, miss," answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture.  She
was always quite serious.

"What next, now?" said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over
her eyes.  "Something will come if I think and wait a little"--in a
soft, expectant voice.  "The Magic will tell me."

One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she called
it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her
stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she
would uncover an enlightened, laughing face.

In a moment she did.

"There!" she cried.  "It has come!  I know now!  I must look among the
things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess."

She flew to its corner and kneeled down.  It had not been put in the
attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere.
Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find
something.  The Magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or
another.

In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had been
overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a
relic.  It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs.  She seized
them joyfully and ran to the table.  She began to arrange them upon the
red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into shape with the narrow
lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells for her as she
did it.

"These are the plates," she said.  "They are golden plates.  These are
the richly embroidered napkins.  Nuns worked them in convents in Spain."

"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the
information.

"You must pretend it," said Sara.  "If you pretend it enough, you will
see them."

"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted
herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired.

Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very
queer indeed.  She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in
strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at
her sides.  She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous
weight.

"What is the matter, Becky?"  Sara cried.  "What are you doing?"

Becky opened her eyes with a start.

"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I was
tryin' to see it like you do.  I almost did," with a hopeful grin. "But
it takes a lot o' stren'th."

"Perhaps it does if you are not used to it," said Sara, with friendly
sympathy; "but you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often.
I wouldn't try so hard just at first.  It will come to you after a
while.  I'll just tell you what things are.  Look at these."

She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the
bottom of the trunk.  There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled
the wreath off.

"These are garlands for the feast," she said grandly.  "They fill all
the air with perfume.  There's a mug on the wash-stand, Becky. Oh--and
bring the soap dish for a centerpiece."

Becky handed them to her reverently.

"What are they now, miss?" she inquired.  "You'd think they was made of
crockery--but I know they ain't."

"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath
about the mug.  "And this"--bending tenderly over the soap dish and
heaping it with roses--"is purest alabaster encrusted with gems."

She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips
which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream.

"My, ain't it lovely!" whispered Becky.

"If we just had something for bonbon dishes," Sara murmured.
"There!"--darting to the trunk again.  "I remember I saw something this
minute."

It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but
the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and
was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick
which was to light the feast.  Only the Magic could have made it more
than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a
long-unopened trunk.  But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing
wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.

"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is it the
Bastille now--or has it turned into somethin' different?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara.  "Quite different.  It is a banquet hall!"

"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky.  "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to
view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.

"A banquet hall," said Sara.  "A vast chamber where feasts are given.
It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney
filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers
twinkling on every side."

"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.

Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under
the weight of her hamper.  She started back with an exclamation of joy.
To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self
confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red,
adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that
the preparations were brilliant indeed.

"Oh, Sara!" she cried out.  "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!"

"Isn't it nice?" said Sara.  "They are things out of my old trunk. I
asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look."

"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are!
They ain't just--oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to Sara.

So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST
see it all:  the golden platters--the vaulted spaces--the blazing
logs--the twinkling waxen tapers.  As the things were taken out of the
hamper--the frosted cakes--the fruits--the bonbons and the wine--the
feast became a splendid thing.

"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde.

"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky.

Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.

"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said.  "Pretend you are a princess now
and this is a royal feast."

"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we
will be your maids of honor."

"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde.  "I'm too fat, and I don't know how.
YOU be her."

"Well, if you want me to," said Sara.

But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.

"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed.
"If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we
shall feel as if it was a real fire."  She struck a match and lighted
it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room.

"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its
not being real."

She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.

"Doesn't it LOOK real?" she said.  "Now we will begin the party."

She led the way to the table.  She waved her hand graciously to
Ermengarde and Becky.  She was in the midst of her dream.

"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be
seated at the banquet table.  My noble father, the king, who is absent
on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you." She turned her head
slightly toward the corner of the room. "What, ho, there, minstrels!
Strike up with your viols and bassoons.  Princesses," she explained
rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels to play at their
feasts.  Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner.
Now we will begin."

They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their
hands--not one of them had time to do more, when--they all three sprang
to their feet and turned pale faces toward the
door--listening--listening.

Someone was coming up the stairs.  There was no mistake about it. Each
of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of
all things had come.

"It's--the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon
the floor.

"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white
face.  "Miss Minchin has found us out."

Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale
herself, but it was with rage.  She looked from the frightened faces to
the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of
the burnt paper in the grate.

"I have been suspecting something of this sort," she exclaimed; "but I
did not dream of such audacity.  Lavinia was telling the truth."

So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret
and had betrayed them.  Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her
ears for a second time.

"You impudent creature!" she said.  "You leave the house in the
morning!"

Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler.
Ermengarde burst into tears.

"Oh, don't send her away," she sobbed.  "My aunt sent me the hamper.
We're--only--having a party."

"So I see," said Miss Minchin, witheringly.  "With the Princess Sara at
the head of the table."  She turned fiercely on Sara.  "It is your
doing, I know," she cried.  "Ermengarde would never have thought of
such a thing.  You decorated the table, I suppose--with this rubbish."
She stamped her foot at Becky.  "Go to your attic!" she commanded, and
Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking.

Then it was Sara's turn again.

"I will attend to you tomorrow.  You shall have neither breakfast,
dinner, nor supper!"

"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said
Sara, rather faintly.

"Then all the better.  You will have something to remember.  Don't
stand there.  Put those things into the hamper again."

She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and
caught sight of Ermengarde's new books.

"And you"--to Ermengarde--"have brought your beautiful new books into
this dirty attic.  Take them up and go back to bed.  You will stay
there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa.  What would HE
say if he knew where you are tonight?"

Something she saw in Sara's grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her
turn on her fiercely.

"What are you thinking of?" she demanded.  "Why do you look at me like
that?"

"I was wondering," answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day
in the schoolroom.

"What were you wondering?"

It was very like the scene in the schoolroom.  There was no pertness in
Sara's manner.  It was only sad and quiet.

"I was wondering," she said in a low voice, "what MY papa would say if
he knew where I am tonight."

Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before and her anger
expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate fashion.  She flew at
her and shook her.

"You insolent, unmanageable child!" she cried.  "How dare you!  How
dare you!"

She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the
hamper in a jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde's arms, and pushed
her before her toward the door.

"I will leave you to wonder," she said.  "Go to bed this instant." And
she shut the door behind herself and poor stumbling Ermengarde, and
left Sara standing quite alone.

The dream was quite at an end.  The last spark had died out of the
paper in the grate and left only black tinder; the table was left bare,
the golden plates and richly embroidered napkins, and the garlands were
transformed again into old handkerchiefs, scraps of red and white
paper, and discarded artificial flowers all scattered on the floor; the
minstrels in the minstrel gallery had stolen away, and the viols and
bassoons were still. Emily was sitting with her back against the wall,
staring very hard.  Sara saw her, and went and picked her up with
trembling hands.

"There isn't any banquet left, Emily," she said.  "And there isn't any
princess.  There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille."
And she sat down and hid her face.

What would have happened if she had not hidden it just then, and if she
had chanced to look up at the skylight at the wrong moment, I do not
know--perhaps the end of this chapter might have been quite
different--because if she had glanced at the skylight she would
certainly have been startled by what she would have seen. She would
have seen exactly the same face pressed against the glass and peering
in at her as it had peered in earlier in the evening when she had been
talking to Ermengarde.

But she did not look up.  She sat with her little black head in her
arms for some time.  She always sat like that when she was trying to
bear something in silence.  Then she got up and went slowly to the bed.

"I can't pretend anything else--while I am awake," she said.  "There
wouldn't be any use in trying.  If I go to sleep, perhaps a dream will
come and pretend for me."

She suddenly felt so tired--perhaps through want of food--that she sat
down on the edge of the bed quite weakly.

"Suppose there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little
dancing flames," she murmured.  "Suppose there was a comfortable chair
before it--and suppose there was a small table near, with a little
hot--hot supper on it.  And suppose"--as she drew the thin coverings
over her--"suppose this was a beautiful soft bed, with fleecy blankets
and large downy pillows.  Suppose--suppose--" And her very weariness
was good to her, for her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep.

She did not know how long she slept.  But she had been tired enough to
sleep deeply and profoundly--too deeply and soundly to be disturbed by
anything, even by the squeaks and scamperings of Melchisedec's entire
family, if all his sons and daughters had chosen to come out of their
hole to fight and tumble and play.

When she awakened it was rather suddenly, and she did not know that any
particular thing had called her out of her sleep. The truth was,
however, that it was a sound which had called her back--a real
sound--the click of the skylight as it fell in closing after a lithe
white figure which slipped through it and crouched down close by upon
the slates of the roof--just near enough to see what happened in the
attic, but not near enough to be seen.

At first she did not open her eyes.  She felt too sleepy and--curiously
enough--too warm and comfortable.  She was so warm and comfortable,
indeed, that she did not believe she was really awake. She never was as
warm and cozy as this except in some lovely vision.

"What a nice dream!" she murmured.  "I feel quite warm.
I--don't--want--to--wake--up."

Of course it was a dream.  She felt as if warm, delightful bedclothes
were heaped upon her.  She could actually FEEL blankets, and when she
put out her hand it touched something exactly like a satin-covered
eider-down quilt.  She must not awaken from this delight--she must be
quite still and make it last.

But she could not--even though she kept her eyes closed tightly, she
could not.  Something was forcing her to awaken--something in the room.
It was a sense of light, and a sound--the sound of a crackling, roaring
little fire.

"Oh, I am awakening," she said mournfully.  "I can't help it--I can't."

Her eyes opened in spite of herself.  And then she actually smiled--for
what she saw she had never seen in the attic before, and knew she never
should see.

"Oh, I HAVEN'T awakened," she whispered, daring to rise on her elbow
and look all about her.  "I am dreaming yet."  She knew it MUST be a
dream, for if she were awake such things could not--could not be.

Do you wonder that she felt sure she had not come back to earth?  This
is what she saw.  In the grate there was a glowing, blazing fire; on
the hob was a little brass kettle hissing and boiling; spread upon the
floor was a thick, warm crimson rug; before the fire a folding-chair,
unfolded, and with cushions on it; by the chair a small folding-table,
unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it spread small covered
dishes, a cup, a saucer, a teapot; on the bed were new warm coverings
and a satin-covered down quilt; at the foot a curious wadded silk robe,
a pair of quilted slippers, and some books.  The room of her dream
seemed changed into fairyland--and it was flooded with warm light, for
a bright lamp stood on the table covered with a rosy shade.

She sat up, resting on her elbow, and her breathing came short and fast.

"It does not--melt away," she panted.  "Oh, I never had such a dream
before."  She scarcely dared to stir; but at last she pushed the
bedclothes aside, and put her feet on the floor with a rapturous smile.

"I am dreaming--I am getting out of bed," she heard her own voice say;
and then, as she stood up in the midst of it all, turning slowly from
side to side--"I am dreaming it stays--real! I'm dreaming it FEELS
real.  It's bewitched--or I'm bewitched. I only THINK I see it all."
Her words began to hurry themselves.  "If I can only keep on thinking
it," she cried, "I don't care! I don't care!"

She stood panting a moment longer, and then cried out again.

"Oh, it isn't true!" she said.  "It CAN'T be true!  But oh, how true it
seems!"

The blazing fire drew her to it, and she knelt down and held out her
hands close to it--so close that the heat made her start back.

"A fire I only dreamed wouldn't be HOT," she cried.

She sprang up, touched the table, the dishes, the rug; she went to the
bed and touched the blankets.  She took up the soft wadded
dressing-gown, and suddenly clutched it to her breast and held it to
her cheek.

"It's warm.  It's soft!" she almost sobbed.  "It's real. It must be!"

She threw it over her shoulders, and put her feet into the slippers.

"They are real, too.  It's all real!" she cried.  "I am NOT--I am NOT
dreaming!"

She almost staggered to the books and opened the one which lay upon the
top.  Something was written on the flyleaf--just a few words, and they
were these:

"To the little girl in the attic.  From a friend."

When she saw that--wasn't it a strange thing for her to do--she put her
face down upon the page and burst into tears.

"I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a
little.  I have a friend."

She took her candle and stole out of her own room and into Becky's, and
stood by her bedside.

"Becky, Becky!" she whispered as loudly as she dared.  "Wake up!"

When Becky wakened, and she sat upright staring aghast, her face still
smudged with traces of tears, beside her stood a little figure in a
luxurious wadded robe of crimson silk.  The face she saw was a shining,
wonderful thing.  The Princess Sara--as she remembered her--stood at
her very bedside, holding a candle in her hand.

"Come," she said.  "Oh, Becky, come!"

Becky was too frightened to speak.  She simply got up and followed her,
with her mouth and eyes open, and without a word.

And when they crossed the threshold, Sara shut the door gently and drew
her into the warm, glowing midst of things which made her brain reel
and her hungry senses faint.  "It's true!  It's true!" she cried.
"I've touched them all.  They are as real as we are. The Magic has come
and done it, Becky, while we were asleep--the Magic that won't let
those worst things EVER quite happen."

The Visitor

Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like.  How they
crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made so much of itself
in the little grate.  How they removed the covers of the dishes, and
found rich, hot, savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and
sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. The mug from
the washstand was used as Becky's tea cup, and the tea was so delicious
that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea.
They were warm and full-fed and happy, and it was just like Sara that,
having found her strange good fortune real, she should give herself up
to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of
imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing
that happened, and almost to cease, in a short time, to find it
bewildering.

"I don't know anyone in the world who could have done it," she said;
"but there has been someone.  And here we are sitting by their
fire--and--and--it's true!  And whoever it is--wherever they are--I
have a friend, Becky--someone is my friend."

It cannot be denied that as they sat before the blazing fire, and ate
the nourishing, comfortable food, they felt a kind of rapturous awe,
and looked into each other's eyes with something like doubt.

"Do you think," Becky faltered once, in a whisper, "do you think it
could melt away, miss?  Hadn't we better be quick?"  And she hastily
crammed her sandwich into her mouth.  If it was only a dream, kitchen
manners would be overlooked.

"No, it won't melt away," said Sara.  "I am EATING this muffin, and I
can taste it.  You never really eat things in dreams. You only think
you are going to eat them.  Besides, I keep giving myself pinches; and
I touched a hot piece of coal just now, on purpose."

The sleepy comfort which at length almost overpowered them was a
heavenly thing.  It was the drowsiness of happy, well-fed childhood,
and they sat in the fire glow and luxuriated in it until Sara found
herself turning to look at her transformed bed.

There were even blankets enough to share with Becky.  The narrow couch
in the next attic was more comfortable that night than its occupant had
ever dreamed that it could be.

As she went out of the room, Becky turned upon the threshold and looked
about her with devouring eyes.

"If it ain't here in the mornin', miss," she said, "it's been here
tonight, anyways, an' I shan't never forget it."  She looked at each
particular thing, as if to commit it to memory.  "The fire was THERE",
pointing with her finger, "an' the table was before it; an' the lamp
was there, an' the light looked rosy red; an' there was a satin cover
on your bed, an' a warm rug on the floor, an' everythin' looked
beautiful; an'"--she paused a second, and laid her hand on her stomach
tenderly--"there WAS soup an' sandwiches an' muffins--there WAS." And,
with this conviction a reality at least, she went away.

Through the mysterious agency which works in schools and among
servants, it was quite well known in the morning that Sara Crewe was in
horrible disgrace, that Ermengarde was under punishment, and that Becky
would have been packed out of the house before breakfast, but that a
scullery maid could not be dispensed with at once. The servants knew
that she was allowed to stay because Miss Minchin could not easily find
another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden
slave for so few shillings a week. The elder girls in the schoolroom
knew that if Miss Minchin did not send Sara away it was for practical
reasons of her own.

"She's growing so fast and learning such a lot, somehow," said Jessie
to Lavinia, "that she will be given classes soon, and Miss Minchin
knows she will have to work for nothing.  It was rather nasty of you,
Lavvy, to tell about her having fun in the garret.  How did you find it
out?"

"I got it out of Lottie.  She's such a baby she didn't know she was
telling me.  There was nothing nasty at all in speaking to Miss
Minchin. I felt it my duty"--priggishly.  "She was being deceitful.
And it's ridiculous that she should look so grand, and be made so much
of, in her rags and tatters!"

"What were they doing when Miss Minchin caught them?"

"Pretending some silly thing.  Ermengarde had taken up her hamper to
share with Sara and Becky.  She never invites us to share things. Not
that I care, but it's rather vulgar of her to share with servant girls
in attics.  I wonder Miss Minchin didn't turn Sara out--even if she
does want her for a teacher."

"If she was turned out where would she go?" inquired Jessie, a trifle
anxiously.

"How do I know?" snapped Lavinia.  "She'll look rather queer when she
comes into the schoolroom this morning, I should think--after what's
happened.  She had no dinner yesterday, and she's not to have any
today."

Jessie was not as ill-natured as she was silly.  She picked up her book
with a little jerk.

"Well, I think it's horrid," she said.  "They've no right to starve her
to death."

When Sara went into the kitchen that morning the cook looked askance at
her, and so did the housemaids; but she passed them hurriedly. She had,
in fact, overslept herself a little, and as Becky had done the same,
neither had had time to see the other, and each had come downstairs in
haste.

Sara went into the scullery.  Becky was violently scrubbing a kettle,
and was actually gurgling a little song in her throat.  She looked up
with a wildly elated face.

"It was there when I wakened, miss--the blanket," she whispered
excitedly. "It was as real as it was last night."

"So was mine," said Sara.  "It is all there now--all of it.  While I
was dressing I ate some of the cold things we left."

"Oh, laws!  Oh, laws!"  Becky uttered the exclamation in a sort of
rapturous groan, and ducked her head over her kettle just in time, as
the cook came in from the kitchen.

Miss Minchin had expected to see in Sara, when she appeared in the
schoolroom, very much what Lavinia had expected to see. Sara had always
been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or
look frightened.  When she was scolded she stood still and listened
politely with a grave face; when she was punished she performed her
extra tasks or went without her meals, making no complaint or outward
sign of rebellion.  The very fact that she never made an impudent
answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impudence in itself.  But after
yesterday's deprivation of meals, the violent scene of last night, the
prospect of hunger today, she must surely have broken down.  It would
be strange indeed if she did not come downstairs with pale cheeks and
red eyes and an unhappy, humbled face.

Miss Minchin saw her for the first time when she entered the schoolroom
to hear the little French class recite its lessons and superintend its
exercises.  And she came in with a springing step, color in her cheeks,
and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. It was the most
astonishing thing Miss Minchin had ever known. It gave her quite a
shock.  What was the child made of?  What could such a thing mean?  She
called her at once to her desk.

"You do not look as if you realize that you are in disgrace," she said.
"Are you absolutely hardened?"

The truth is that when one is still a child--or even if one is grown
up--and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when
one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to
find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and
one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes. Miss
Minchin was almost struck dumb by the look of Sara's eyes when she made
her perfectly respectful answer.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin," she said; "I know that I am in
disgrace."

"Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a
fortune.  It is an impertinence.  And remember you are to have no food
today."

"Yes, Miss Minchin," Sara answered; but as she turned away her heart
leaped with the memory of what yesterday had been. "If the Magic had
not saved me just in time," she thought, "how horrible it would have
been!"

"She can't be very hungry," whispered Lavinia.  "Just look at her.
Perhaps she is pretending she has had a good breakfast"--with a
spiteful laugh.

"She's different from other people," said Jessie, watching Sara with
her class.  "Sometimes I'm a bit frightened of her."

"Ridiculous thing!" ejaculated Lavinia.

All through the day the light was in Sara's face, and the color in her
cheek.  The servants cast puzzled glances at her, and whispered to each
other, and Miss Amelia's small blue eyes wore an expression of
bewilderment.  What such an audacious look of well-being, under august
displeasure could mean she could not understand. It was, however, just
like Sara's singular obstinate way. She was probably determined to
brave the matter out.

One thing Sara had resolved upon, as she thought things over.  The
wonders which had happened must be kept a secret, if such a thing were
possible.  If Miss Minchin should choose to mount to the attic again,
of course all would be discovered.  But it did not seem likely that she
would do so for some time at least, unless she was led by suspicion.
Ermengarde and Lottie would be watched with such strictness that they
would not dare to steal out of their beds again. Ermengarde could be
told the story and trusted to keep it secret. If Lottie made any
discoveries, she could be bound to secrecy also. Perhaps the Magic
itself would help to hide its own marvels.

"But whatever happens," Sara kept saying to herself all day--"WHATEVER
happens, somewhere in the world there is a heavenly kind person who is
my friend--my friend.  If I never know who it is--if I never can even
thank him--I shall never feel quite so lonely.  Oh, the Magic was GOOD
to me!"

If it was possible for weather to be worse than it had been the day
before, it was worse this day--wetter, muddier, colder.  There were
more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and, knowing that
Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything
matter when one's Magic has just proved itself one's friend.  Sara's
supper of the night before had given her strength, she knew that she
should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had naturally begun
to be hungry again before evening, she felt that she could bear it
until breakfast-time on the following day, when her meals would surely
be given to her again.  It was quite late when she was at last allowed
to go upstairs.  She had been told to go into the schoolroom and study
until ten o'clock, and she had become interested in her work, and
remained over her books later.

When she reached the top flight of stairs and stood before the attic
door, it must be confessed that her heart beat rather fast.

"Of course it MIGHT all have been taken away," she whispered, trying to
be brave.  "It might only have been lent to me for just that one awful
night.  But it WAS lent to me--I had it. It was real."

She pushed the door open and went in.  Once inside, she gasped
slightly, shut the door, and stood with her back against it looking
from side to side.

The Magic had been there again.  It actually had, and it had done even
more than before.  The fire was blazing, in lovely leaping flames, more
merrily than ever.  A number of new things had been brought into the
attic which so altered the look of it that if she had not been past
doubting she would have rubbed her eyes.  Upon the low table another
supper stood--this time with cups and plates for Becky as well as
herself; a piece of bright, heavy, strange embroidery covered the
battered mantel, and on it some ornaments had been placed. All the
bare, ugly things which could be covered with draperies had been
concealed and made to look quite pretty.  Some odd materials of rich
colors had been fastened against the wall with fine, sharp tacks--so
sharp that they could be pressed into the wood and plaster without
hammering.  Some brilliant fans were pinned up, and there were several
large cushions, big and substantial enough to use as seats.  A wooden
box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it
wore quite the air of a sofa.

Sara slowly moved away from the door and simply sat down and looked and
looked again.

"It is exactly like something fairy come true," she said. "There isn't
the least difference.  I feel as if I might wish for anything--diamonds
or bags of gold--and they would appear! THAT wouldn't be any stranger
than this.  Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara?
And to think I used to pretend and pretend and wish there were fairies!
The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true.  I am
LIVING in a fairy story. I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and
able to turn things into anything else."

She rose and knocked upon the wall for the prisoner in the next cell,
and the prisoner came.

When she entered she almost dropped in a heap upon the floor.  For a
few seconds she quite lost her breath.

"Oh, laws!" she gasped.  "Oh, laws, miss!"

"You see," said Sara.

On this night Becky sat on a cushion upon the hearth rug and had a cup
and saucer of her own.

When Sara went to bed she found that she had a new thick mattress and
big downy pillows.  Her old mattress and pillow had been removed to
Becky's bedstead, and, consequently, with these additions Becky had
been supplied with unheard-of comfort.

"Where does it all come from?"  Becky broke forth once. "Laws, who does
it, miss?"

"Don't let us even ASK," said Sara.  "If it were not that I want to
say, 'Oh, thank you,' I would rather not know.  It makes it more
beautiful."

From that time life became more wonderful day by day.  The fairy story
continued.  Almost every day something new was done. Some new comfort
or ornament appeared each time Sara opened the door at night, until in
a short time the attic was a beautiful little room full of all sorts of
odd and luxurious things.  The ugly walls were gradually entirely
covered with pictures and draperies, ingenious pieces of folding
furniture appeared, a bookshelf was hung up and filled with books, new
comforts and conveniences appeared one by one, until there seemed
nothing left to be desired. When Sara went downstairs in the morning,
the remains of the supper were on the table; and when she returned to
the attic in the evening, the magician had removed them and left
another nice little meal. Miss Minchin was as harsh and insulting as
ever, Miss Amelia as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar and rude.
Sara was sent on errands in all weathers, and scolded and driven hither
and thither; she was scarcely allowed to speak to Ermengarde and
Lottie; Lavinia sneered at the increasing shabbiness of her clothes;
and the other girls stared curiously at her when she appeared in the
schoolroom. But what did it all matter while she was living in this
wonderful mysterious story?  It was more romantic and delightful than
anything she had ever invented to comfort her starved young soul and
save herself from despair.  Sometimes, when she was scolded, she could
scarcely keep from smiling.

"If you only knew!" she was saying to herself.  "If you only knew!"

The comfort and happiness she enjoyed were making her stronger, and she
had them always to look forward to.  If she came home from her errands
wet and tired and hungry, she knew she would soon be warm and well fed
after she had climbed the stairs.  During the hardest day she could
occupy herself blissfully by thinking of what she should see when she
opened the attic door, and wondering what new delight had been prepared
for her.  In a very short time she began to look less thin.  Color came
into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem so much too big for her face.

"Sara Crewe looks wonderfully well," Miss Minchin remarked
disapprovingly to her sister.

"Yes," answered poor, silly Miss Amelia.  "She is absolutely fattening.
She was beginning to look like a little starved crow."

"Starved!" exclaimed Miss Minchin, angrily.  "There was no reason why
she should look starved.  She always had plenty to eat!"

"Of--of course," agreed Miss Amelia, humbly, alarmed to find that she
had, as usual, said the wrong thing.

"There is something very disagreeable in seeing that sort of thing in a
child of her age," said Miss Minchin, with haughty vagueness.

"What--sort of thing?"  Miss Amelia ventured.

"It might almost be called defiance," answered Miss Minchin, feeling
annoyed because she knew the thing she resented was nothing like
defiance, and she did not know what other unpleasant term to use. "The
spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and
broken by--by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word,
she seems as little subdued as if--as if she were a princess."

"Do you remember," put in the unwise Miss Amelia, "what she said to you
that day in the schoolroom about what you would do if you found out
that she was--"

"No, I don't," said Miss Minchin.  "Don't talk nonsense." But she
remembered very clearly indeed.

Very naturally, even Becky was beginning to look plumper and less
frightened.  She could not help it.  She had her share in the secret
fairy story, too.  She had two mattresses, two pillows, plenty of
bed-covering, and every night a hot supper and a seat on the cushions
by the fire.  The Bastille had melted away, the prisoners no longer
existed.  Two comforted children sat in the midst of delights.
Sometimes Sara read aloud from her books, sometimes she learned her own
lessons, sometimes she sat and looked into the fire and tried to
imagine who her friend could be, and wished she could say to him some
of the things in her heart.

Then it came about that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to
the door and left several parcels.  All were addressed in large
letters, "To the Little Girl in the right-hand attic."

Sara herself was sent to open the door and take them in. She laid the
two largest parcels on the hall table, and was looking at the address,
when Miss Minchin came down the stairs and saw her.

"Take the things to the young lady to whom they belong," she said
severely.  "Don't stand there staring at them.

"They belong to me," answered Sara, quietly.

"To you?" exclaimed Miss Minchin.  "What do you mean?"

"I don't know where they come from," said Sara, "but they are addressed
to me.  I sleep in the right-hand attic.  Becky has the other one."

Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at the parcels with an excited
expression.

"What is in them?" she demanded.

"I don't know," replied Sara.

"Open them," she ordered.

Sara did as she was told.  When the packages were unfolded Miss
Minchin's countenance wore suddenly a singular expression.  What she
saw was pretty and comfortable clothing--clothing of different kinds:
shoes, stockings, and gloves, and a warm and beautiful coat. There were
even a nice hat and an umbrella.  They were all good and expensive
things, and on the pocket of the coat was pinned a paper, on which were
written these words:  "To be worn every day. Will be replaced by others
when necessary."

Miss Minchin was quite agitated.  This was an incident which suggested
strange things to her sordid mind.  Could it be that she had made a
mistake, after all, and that the neglected child had some powerful
though eccentric friend in the background--perhaps some previously
unknown relation, who had suddenly traced her whereabouts, and chose to
provide for her in this mysterious and fantastic way? Relations were
sometimes very odd--particularly rich old bachelor uncles, who did not
care for having children near them. A man of that sort might prefer to
overlook his young relation's welfare at a distance.  Such a person,
however, would be sure to be crotchety and hot-tempered enough to be
easily offended. It would not be very pleasant if there were such a
one, and he should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes,
the scant food, and the hard work.  She felt very queer indeed, and
very uncertain, and she gave a side glance at Sara.

"Well," she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the
little girl lost her father, "someone is very kind to you. As the
things have been sent, and you are to have new ones when they are worn
out, you may as well go and put them on and look respectable. After you
are dressed you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the
schoolroom.  You need not go out on any more errands today."

About half an hour afterward, when the schoolroom door opened and Sara
walked in, the entire seminary was struck dumb.

"My word!" ejaculated Jessie, jogging Lavinia's elbow.  "Look at the
Princess Sara!"

Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia looked she turned quite red.

It was the Princess Sara indeed.  At least, since the days when she had
been a princess, Sara had never looked as she did now.  She did not
seem the Sara they had seen come down the back stairs a few hours ago.
She was dressed in the kind of frock Lavinia had been used to envying
her the possession of.  It was deep and warm in color, and beautifully
made.  Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jessie had admired
them, and the hair, whose heavy locks had made her look rather like a
Shetland pony when it fell loose about her small, odd face, was tied
back with a ribbon.

"Perhaps someone has left her a fortune," Jessie whispered. "I always
thought something would happen to her.  She's so queer."

"Perhaps the diamond mines have suddenly appeared again," said Lavinia,
scathingly.  "Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly
thing."

"Sara," broke in Miss Minchin's deep voice, "come and sit here."

And while the whole schoolroom stared and pushed with elbows, and
scarcely made any effort to conceal its excited curiosity, Sara went to
her old seat of honor, and bent her head over her books.

That night, when she went to her room, after she and Becky had eaten
their supper she sat and looked at the fire seriously for a long time.

"Are you making something up in your head, miss?"  Becky inquired with
respectful softness.  When Sara sat in silence and looked into the
coals with dreaming eyes it generally meant that she was making a new
story.  But this time she was not, and she shook her head.

"No," she answered.  "I am wondering what I ought to do."

Becky stared--still respectfully.  She was filled with something
approaching reverence for everything Sara did and said.

"I can't help thinking about my friend," Sara explained.  "If he wants
to keep himself a secret, it would be rude to try and find out who he
is.  But I do so want him to know how thankful I am to him--and how
happy he has made me.  Anyone who is kind wants to know when people
have been made happy.  They care for that more than for being thanked.
I wish--I do wish--"

She stopped short because her eyes at that instant fell upon something
standing on a table in a corner.  It was something she had found in the
room when she came up to it only two days before. It was a little
writing-case fitted with paper and envelopes and pens and ink.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "why did I not think of that before?"

She rose and went to the corner and brought the case back to the fire.

"I can write to him," she said joyfully, "and leave it on the table.
Then perhaps the person who takes the things away will take it, too. I
won't ask him anything.  He won't mind my thanking him, I feel sure."

So she wrote a note.  This is what she said:

I hope you will not think it is impolite that I should write this note
to you when you wish to keep yourself a secret.  Please believe I do
not mean to be impolite or try to find out anything at all; only I want
to thank you for being so kind to me--so heavenly kind--and making
everything like a fairy story.  I am so grateful to you, and I am so
happy--and so is Becky.  Becky feels just as thankful as I do--it is
all just as beautiful and wonderful to her as it is to me. We used to
be so lonely and cold and hungry, and now--oh, just think what you have
done for us!  Please let me say just these words.  It seems as if I
OUGHT to say them.  THANK you--THANK you--THANK you!

THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE ATTIC.

The next morning she left this on the little table, and in the evening
it had been taken away with the other things; so she knew the Magician
had received it, and she was happier for the thought. She was reading
one of her new books to Becky just before they went to their respective
beds, when her attention was attracted by a sound at the skylight.
When she looked up from her page she saw that Becky had heard the sound
also, as she had turned her head to look and was listening rather
nervously.

"Something's there, miss," she whispered.

"Yes," said Sara, slowly.  "It sounds--rather like a cat--trying to get
in."

She left her chair and went to the skylight.  It was a queer little
sound she heard--like a soft scratching.  She suddenly remembered
something and laughed.  She remembered a quaint little intruder who had
made his way into the attic once before.  She had seen him that very
afternoon, sitting disconsolately on a table before a window in the
Indian gentleman's house.

"Suppose," she whispered in pleased excitement--"just suppose it was
the monkey who got away again.  Oh, I wish it was!"

She climbed on a chair, very cautiously raised the skylight, and peeped
out.  It had been snowing all day, and on the snow, quite near her,
crouched a tiny, shivering figure, whose small black face wrinkled
itself piteously at sight of her.

"It is the monkey," she cried out.  "He has crept out of the Lascar's
attic, and he saw the light."

Becky ran to her side.

"Are you going to let him in, miss?" she said.

"Yes," Sara answered joyfully.  "It's too cold for monkeys to be out.
They're delicate.  I'll coax him in."

She put a hand out delicately, speaking in a coaxing voice--as she
spoke to the sparrows and to Melchisedec--as if she were some friendly
little animal herself.

"Come along, monkey darling," she said.  "I won't hurt you."

He knew she would not hurt him.  He knew it before she laid her soft,
caressing little paw on him and drew him towards her. He had felt human
love in the slim brown hands of Ram Dass, and he felt it in hers.  He
let her lift him through the skylight, and when he found himself in her
arms he cuddled up to her breast and looked up into her face.

"Nice monkey!  Nice monkey!" she crooned, kissing his funny head. "Oh,
I do love little animal things."

He was evidently glad to get to the fire, and when she sat down and
held him on her knee he looked from her to Becky with mingled interest
and appreciation.

"He IS plain-looking, miss, ain't he?" said Becky.

"He looks like a very ugly baby," laughed Sara.  "I beg your pardon,
monkey; but I'm glad you are not a baby.  Your mother COULDN'T be proud
of you, and no one would dare to say you looked like any of your
relations.  Oh, I do like you!"

She leaned back in her chair and reflected.

"Perhaps he's sorry he's so ugly," she said, "and it's always on his
mind.  I wonder if he HAS a mind.  Monkey, my love, have you a mind?"

But the monkey only put up a tiny paw and scratched his head.

"What shall you do with him?"  Becky asked.

"I shall let him sleep with me tonight, and then take him back to the
Indian gentleman tomorrow.  I am sorry to take you back, monkey; but
you must go.  You ought to be fondest of your own family; and I'm not a
REAL relation."

And when she went to bed she made him a nest at her feet, and he curled
up and slept there as if he were a baby and much pleased with his
quarters.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The winter following Sara's downfall is a dismal one, and she and Becky get through it by telling each other stories and imagining that they are princesses or prisoners in the Bastille. On one particularly cold day, when she is running errands, Sara fantasizes about finding sixpence and spending it at a bakery. Lo and behold, she finds a four-penny piece buried in the mud, and realizes that she is right in front of a bakery selling delicious buns. But before she can go in, she sees a child in even worse shape than herself--one who has clearly been sleeping on the streets instead of in an attic. Sara asks the woman in the bakery if she has lost the fourpence, and the woman, realizing that Sara is going hungry, gives her six buns instead of the four she can technically afford with her coin. Sara gives five to the hungry child, keeping only one, and the woman in the bakery is so amazed by what she has witnessed that she invites the homeless child inside to warm up in honor of Sara's obvious sacrifice. As she nears the seminary, Sara spots the children of the large family bidding their father, Mr. Carmichael, farewell: he is going to Moscow to try to find a certain "little girl." Sara wonders who the little girl is, oblivious to the fact that she is the child in question. Meanwhile, the Carmichael children watch her go by, wondering what her story is and why she is always being sent on such seemingly unpleasant errands. The next chapter pivots playfully to the perspective of Melchisedec, the only witness to an interesting incident in the attic while Sara is out. He sees two men breaking into the room via the skylight--Ram Dass and Mr. Carrisford's secretary, though Melchisedec does not know this. Ram Dass reveals that he watches Sara through their windows, and that she is a friend to all, even rats. He also references a plan being made by Mr. Carrisford, evidently to surprise Sara, hence the two men's decision to enter the room in her absence. They examine the shabby room, noting ways in which they might improve it, and discussing how excited Sara will be to see her room transformed. Ram Dass admits that this plan was his idea at first, but was then embraced by Carrisford himself. Carrisford, who is ill, is cheered by stories of Sara's kindness, even though he is upset that he cannot find Captain Crewe's daughter. The secretary compliments the secretiveness and cleverness of Ram Dass's idea, telling him that "only an oriental could have planned it." Sara has no idea that anyone is planning to surprise her. She arrives home tired and hungry, and the bad-tempered cook gives her only stale bread for dinner. Luckily Ermengarde has come to visit and brought some books, which her father has sent her to read. Sara, who loves books, offers to read them and explain them to Ermengarde. Ermengarde plans to lie to her father and pretend to have read the books, but Sara encourages her to come clean, saying that lying is "vulgar." After all, Sara says, learning new things quickly isn't nearly as important as being kind to others, so Ermengarde's father won't mind. Then Sara tells Ermengarde about the French Revolution so vividly that Ermengarde knows she won't forget. Ermengarde isn't very observant, but she does point out how thin Sara looks, though Sara, never one to complain of hunger, tries to change the subject. Then the girls hear a series of disturbances. Ram Dass peeks in through the skylight, and while they don't see him, Sara does hear him on the roof. Then they hear Miss Minchin yelling at Becky in her own attic room, accusing her of stealing a pie. Evidently, thought the cook has stolen a pie, she has accused Becky of doing so. Sara begins to sob, and Ermengarde realizes that her friend is starving. Ermengarde realizes that her aunt has just sent her a box full of delicious food, and she offers to go find the box and sneak it into Sara's room. The girls invite Becky to join their feast. While Ermengarde is gone fetching the box, Sara and Becky set a table with some random objects from around the room, pretending that they are beautiful dishes and centerpieces, and that they are hosting a royal feast. Ermengarde has only just returned with her box of food, though, when Miss Minchin discovers the girls. She has been clued into their secret gathering by Lavinia. She promises to punish all three girls, which, in Sara's case, more or less means starvation. Sara, left dejected and alone, doesn't know that Ram Dass has been watching her. Sara goes to bed, and, when she wakes in the middle of the night, she is covered by a warm quilt. Her room has new furniture and a roaring fire in the hearth, plus a table set with food. At first she's convinced the transformation is a dream, but eventually she realizes the room is really transformed, and finds a note that reads, "To the little girl in the attic. From a friend." She wakes Becky and the girls stare in disbelief at the seemingly magic change that has occurred. The girls stay awake, enjoying the fire and the food. Sara is most excited, though, by the knowledge that someone seems to be looking out for her. Before the girls go to sleep, Becky announces that she treasures the transformation, even if it is temporary, and commits the beautiful room to memory. In the morning, the whole school knows that Sara, Becky, and Ermengarde are in trouble. Becky would have been kicked out except that nobody else is willing to do her difficult job, and Sara would have been except that Miss Minchin wants to make use of her cleverness by making her teach classes. Meanwhile, Jessie and Lavinia argue about Lavinia's choice to report on Sara: Lavinia defends herself, while Jessie expresses horror over Sara's working conditions. Sara, though, looks healthy and happy after her surprise, much to Miss Minchin's chagrin. Sara is treated even more cruelly than usual, but when she returns to her room, it has been utterly transformed again, even more extravagantly. Every evening, when Sara returns to her room, she finds new additions. One day she finds a package addressed to "the girl in the right-hand attic," and opens it in front of Miss Minchin. It contains practical, expensively made clothes and a note promising that more will be provided whenever they are needed. Sara is happy except for one thing: she wants to thank her secret guardian, but doesn't yet know his identity. She writes a letter profusely thanking her caretaker and leaves it on her table, hoping that the person who brings gifts to her room will find it and retrieve it. The letter disappears one day when she is out, and she knows it has been received. In her room with Becky that evening, she hears a sound near her skylight and realizes that Ram Dass's monkey is trying to enter. She lets the monkey in and snuggles up to it, pleased to have a new animal friend. She tells Becky that the monkey will sleep in her room, and that she will return him the next morning.