7. The Diamond Mines Again
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7. The Diamond Mines AgainWhen Sara ehe holly-hung schoolroom iernoon, she did so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Min, in her gra silk dress, led her by the hand. A manservant followed, carrying the box taining the Last Doll, a housemaid carried a sed box, and Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third and wearing a apron and a ne. Sara would have much preferred to enter in the usual way, but Miss Min had sent for her, and, after an interview in her private sitting room, had expressed her wishes.
"This is not an ordinary occasion," she said. "I do not desire that it should be treated as one."
So Sara was led grandly in a shy when, on her entry, the big girls stared at her and touched each others elbows, and the little ones began to squirm joyously in their seats.
"Silence, young ladies!" said Miss Min, at the murmur which arose. "James, place the box oable and remove the lid. Emma, put yours upon a chair. Becky!" suddenly and severely.
Becky had quite fotten herself in her excitement, and was grinning at Lottie, riggling with rapturous expectation. She almost dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and her frightened, bobbing curtsy of apology was so funny that Lavinia and Jessie tittered.
"It is not your place to look at the young ladies," said Miss Min. "You fet yourself. Put your box down."
Becky obeyed with alarmed haste and hastily backed toward the door.
"You may leave us," Miss Min annouo the servants with a wave of her hand.
Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants to pass out first. She could not help casting a longing gla the box oable. Something made of blue satin eeping from between the folds of tissue paper.
"If you please, Miss Min," said Sara, suddenly, "maynt Becky stay?"
It was a bold thing to do. Miss Min was betrayed into something like a slight jump. The her eyeglass up, and gazed at her show pupil disturbedly.
"Becky!" she exclaimed. "My dearest Sara!"
Sara advanced a step toward her.
"I want her because I know she will like to see the presents," she explained. "She is a little girl, too, you know."
Miss Min was sdalized. She glanced from one figure to the other.
"My dear Sara," she said, "Becky is the scullery maid. Scullery maids--er--are not little girls."
It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. Scullery maids were maes who carried coal scuttles and made fires.
"But Becky is," said Sara. "And I know she would enjoy herself. Please let her stay--because it is my birthday."
Miss Min replied with much dignity:
"As you ask it as a birthday favor--she may stay. Rebecca, thank Miss Sara for her great kindness."
Becky had been bag into the er, twisting the hem of her apron in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but between Saras eyes and her own there passed a gleam of friendly uanding, while her words tumbled over each other.
"Oh, if you please, miss! Im that grateful, miss! I did want to see the doll, miss, that I did. Thank you, miss. And thank you, maam,"--turning and making an alarmed bob to Miss Min-- "for lettiake the liberty."
Miss Min waved her hand again--this time it was in the dire of the er he door.
"Go and stand there," she anded. "Not too he young ladies."
Becky went to her place, grinning. She did not care where she was sent, so that she might have the luck of being i<bdi>..</bdi>he room, instead of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights were going on. She did not even mind when Miss Min cleared her throat ominously and spoke again.
"Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you," she announced.
"Shes going to make a speech," whispered one of the girls. "I wish it was over."
Sara felt rather unfortable. As this was her party, it robable that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a schoolroom and have a speech made about you.
"You are aware, young ladies," the speech began--for it eech--"that dear Sara is eleven years old today."
"Dear Sara!" murmured Lavinia.
"Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Saras birthdays are rather different from other little girls birthdays. When she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it will be her duty to spend in a meritorious manner."
"The diamond mines," giggled Jessie, in a whisper.
Sara did not hear her; but as she stood with her green-gray eyes fixed steadily on Miss Min, she felt herself growing rather hot. When Miss Min talked about money, she felt somehow that she always hated her--and, of course, it was disrespectful to hate grown-up people.
"When her dear papa, Captain Crewe, brought her from India and gave her into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a jesting way, `I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Min. My reply was, `Her education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be such as will adorn the largest fortune. Sara has bey most aplished pupil. Her Frend her dang are a credit to the seminary. Her manners--which have caused you to call her Princess Sara--are perfect. Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this afternoons party. I hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your appreciation of it by saying aloud all together, `Thank you, Sara!"
The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had dohe m Sara remembered so well.
"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be fessed that Lottie jumped up and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a curtsy--and it was a very nie.
"Thank you," she said, "for ing to my party."
"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Min. "That is what a real princess does when the populace applauds her. Lavinia"--scathingly--"the sound you just made was extremely like a snort. If you are jealous of your fellow-pupil, I beg you will express your feelings in some more lady-like manner. Now I will leave you to enjoy yourselves."
The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence always had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs; the older ones wasted no time iing theirs. There was a rush toward the boxes. Sara had bent over one of them with a delighted face.
"These are books, I know," she said.
The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked aghast.
"Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?" she exclaimed. "Why, hes as bad as mine. Dont open them, Sara."
"I like them," Sara laughed, but she turo the biggest box. Wheook out the Last Doll it was so magnifit that the children uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it ihless rapture.
"She is almost as big as Lottie," someone gasped.
Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling.
"Shes dressed for the theater," said Lavinia. "Her cloak is lined with ermine."
"Oh," cried Ermengarde, darting forward, "she has an lass in her hand--a blue-and-gold one!"
"Here is her trunk," said Sara. "Let us open it and look at her things."
She sat down upon the floor and turhe key. The children crowded clam around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their tents. Never had the schoolroom been in su uproar. There were lace collars and silk stogs and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel case taining a necklad a tiara which looked quite as if they were made of real diamonds; there was a long sealskin and muff, there were ball dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses; there were hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie fot that they were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight and caught up things to look at them.
"Suppose," Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, black-velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these splendors--"suppose she uands human talk and feels proud of being admired."
"You are always supposing things," said Lavinia, and her air was very superior.
"I know I am," answered Sara, undisturbedly. "I like it. There is nothing so nice as supposing. Its almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real."
"Its all very well to suppose things if you have everything," said Lavinia. "Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived in a garret?"
Sara stopped arranging the Last Dolls ostrich plumes, and looked thoughtful.
"I believe I could," she said. "If one was a beggar, one would have to suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightnt be easy."
She often thought afterward how stra was that just as she had finished saying this--just at that very moment--Miss Amelia came into the room.
"Sara," she said, "your papas solir. Barrow, has called to see Miss Min, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments are laid in her parlor, you had all better e and have your feast now, so that my sister have her interview here in the schoolroom."
Refreshments were not likely to be disdai any hour, and many pairs of eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arrahe procession into de, and then, with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away, leaving the Last Doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and coats hung upon chair backs, piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their seats.
Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties--it really was an indiscretion.
"Go back to your work, Becky," Miss Amelia had said; but she had stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while she stood looking at them adly, she heard Miss Min upohreshold, and, being smitten with terror at the thought of being accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted uhe table, which hid her by its tablecloth.
Miss Min came into the room, apanied by<mark></mark> a sharp- featured, dry little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Min herself also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression.
She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair.
"Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow," she said.
Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by t<s></s>he Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright aurned his gaze indifferently.
"A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked suctly. "All expeerial, and made at a Parisian modistes. He spent money lavishly enough, that young man."
Miss Min felt offehis seemed to be a disparagement of her best patron and was a liberty.
Even solicitors had nht to take liberties.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow," she said stiffly. "I do not uand."
"Birthday presents," said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, "to a child eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it."
Miss Min drew herself up still midly.
"Captain Crewe is a man of fortune," she said. "The diamond mines alone--"
Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. "Diamond mines!" he broke out. "There are none! Never were!"
Miss Min actually got up from her chair.
"What!" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"At any rate," answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, "it would have been much better if there never had been any."
"Any diamond mines?" ejaculated Miss Min, catg at the back of a chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her.
"Diamond mines spell ruin oftehan they spell wealth," said Mr. Barrow. "When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friends diamond mines, old mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends want his moo put into. The late Captain Crewe--"
Here Miss Min stopped him with a gasp.
"The late Captain Crewe!" she cried out. "The late! You dont e to tell me that Captain Crewe is--"
"Hes dead, maam," Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died of jungle fever and busiroubles bihe jungle fever might not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the busiroubles, and the busiroubles might not have put ao him if the jungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!"
Miss Min dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken filled her with alarm.
"What were his busiroubles?" she said. "What were they?"
"Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends--and ruin."
Miss Min lost her breath.
"Ruin!" she gasped out.
"Lost every penny. That young man had too much mohe dear friend was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money into it, and all Captain Crewes. Then the dear friend ran away--Captain Crewe was already stri with fever when the news came. The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving about his little girl--and didnt leave a penny."
Now Miss Min uood, and never had she received such a blow in her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been ed and robbed, and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame.
"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left nothing! That Sara will have no fortuhat the child is a beggar! That she is left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?"
Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, a it as well to make his own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay.
"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is certainly left on your hands, maam--as she hasnt a relation in the world that we know of."
Miss Min started forward. She looked as if she was going to open the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments.
"It is monstrous!" she said. "Shes in my sitting room at this moment, dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my expense."
"Shes giving it at your expense, madam, if shes giving it," said Mr. Barrow, calmly. "Barro; Skipworth are not responsible for anything. There never was a er sweep made of a mans fortune. Captain Crewe died without paying our last bill--and it was a big one."
Miss Min turned back from the door in increased indignation. This was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being.
"That is what has happeo me!" she cried. "I was always so sure of his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous fantastic wardrobe. The child was to have anything she wanted. She has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and Ive paid for all of them sihe last cheque came."
Mr. Barrow evidently did not io remain to listen to the story of Miss Mins grievances after he had made the position of his firm clear aed the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular sympathy for irate keepers of b schools.
"You had better not pay for anything more, maam," he remarked, "unless you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. She hasnt a brass farthing to call her own."
"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Min, as if she felt it entirely his duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?"
"There isnt anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is dead. The child is left a pauper. Nobody is responsible for her but you."
"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible!"
Miss Min became quite white with rage.
Mr. Barrow turo go.
"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said un- iedly. "Barro; Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry the thing has happened, of course."
"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, yreatly mistaken," Miss Min gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I will turn her into the street!"
If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say quite so much. She saw herself burdened with aravagantly brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all self-trol.
Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door.
"I wouldnt do that, madam," he ented; "it wouldnt look well. Unpleasant story to get about in e with the establishment. Pupil bundled out penniless and without friends."
He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He also khat Miss Min was a business woman, and would be shrewd enough to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make people speak of her as cruel and hard- hearted.
"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "Shes a clever child, I believe. You get a good deal out of her as she grows older."
"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!" exclaimed Miss Min.
"I am sure you will, maam," said Mr. Barrow, with a little sinister smile. "I am sure you will. Good m!"
He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be fessed that Miss Min stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had said was quite true. She k. She had absolutely no redress. Her show pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only a friendless, beggared little girl. Such money as she herself had advanced was lost and could not be regained.
And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had actually been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this.
But as she started toward the door it ened by Miss Amelia, who, when she caught sight of the ged, angry face, fell back a step in alarm.
"What is the matter, sister?" she ejaculated.
Miss Mins voice was almost fierce when she answered:
"Where is Sara Crewe?"
Miss Amelia was bewildered.
"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, shes with the children in your room, of course."
"Has she a black fro her sumptuous wardrobe?"--in bitter irony.
"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A blae?"
"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a blae?"
Miss Amelia began to turn pale.
"No--ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has only the old black velvet, and she has outgrown it."
"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put the blae on, whether it is too short or not. She has doh finery!"
Then Miss Amelia began t her fat hands and cry.
"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What have happened?"
Miss Min wasted no words.
"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands."
Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the chair.
"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I shall never see a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party of hers. Go and make her ge her frock at once."
"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?"
"This moment!" was the fierswer. "Dont sit staring like a goose. Go!"
Poor Miss Amelia was aced to being called a goose. She knew, in fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing to go into the midst of a room full of delighted children, ahe giver of the feast that she had suddenly been transformed into a little beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an old black frock which was too small for her. But the thing must be dohis was evidently not the time wheions might be asked.
She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red. After which she got up a out of the room, without venturing to say another word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had done just now, the wisest course to pursue was to obey orders without any ent. Miss Min walked across the room. She spoke to herself aloud without knowing that she was doing it. During the last year the story of the diamond mines had suggested all sorts of possibilities to her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make fortunes in stocks, with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking forward to gains, she was left to look back upon losses.
"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been pampered as if she were a queen." She was sweeping angrily past the er table as she said it, and the moment she started at the sound of a loud, sobbing sniff which issued from uhe cover.
"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff was heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table cover.
"How dare you!" she cried out. "How dare you! e out immediately!"
It oor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side, and her face was red with repressed g.
"If you please, m--its me, mum," she explained. "I know I hadnt ought to. But I was lookin at the doll, mum--an I was frightened when you e in--an slipped uhe table."
"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss Min.
"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin--I thought I could slip out without your noti, but I couldnt an I had to stay. But I didnt listen, mum--I wouldnt for nothin. But I couldnt help hearin."
Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady before her. She burst into fresh tears.
"Oh, please, m," she said; "I dare say youll give me warnin, mum--but Im so sorry for poor Miss Sara--Im so sorry!"
"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Min.
Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks.
"Yes, m; I will, m," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just wao arst you: Miss Sara--shes been such a rich young lady, an shes been waited on, and and foot; an what will she do now, mum, without no maid? If--if, oh please, would you let me wait on her after Ive done my pots ales? Id do em that quick--if youd let me wait on her now shes poor. Oh," breaking out afresh, "poor little Miss Sara, mum--that was called a princess."
Somehow, she made Miss Min feel more angry thahat the very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child--whom she realized more fully thahat she had never liked--was too much. She actually stamped her foot.
"No--certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and on other people, too. Leave the room this instant, or youll leave your place."
Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room and doweps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her pots ales, a as if her heart would break.
"Its exactly like the ones iories," she wailed. "Them pore princess ohat was drove into the world."
Miss Min had never looked quite so still and hard as she did when Sara came to her, a few hours later, in respoo a message she had sent her.
Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had either been a dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had happened in the life of quite another little girl.
Every sign of the festivities had bee away; the holly had been removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put bato their places. Miss Mins sitting room looked as it always did--all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Min had resumed her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside their party frocks; and this having been dohey had returo the schoolroom and huddled together in groups, whispering and talkiedly.
"Tell Sara to e to my room," Miss Min had said to her sister. "And explain to her clearly that I will have n or unpleasant ses."
"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the stra child I ever saw. She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her what had happened, she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale. When I had finished, she still stood staring for a few seds, and then her began to shake, and she turned round and ran out of the room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she did not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I was saying. It made me feel quite queer not to be answered; and when you tell anything sudden and strange, you expect people will say something--whatever it is."
Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying over and ain to herself in a voice which did not seem her own, "..;My papa is dead! My papa is dead!"
Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watg her from her chair, and cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear-- papa is dead? He is dead in India--thousands of miles away."
When she came into Miss Mins sitting room in ao her summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked instead a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure.
She had put on, without Mariettes help, the cast-aside black- velvet frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long and thin, showing themselves from beh the brief skirt. As she had not found a piece of black ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled loosely about her fad trasted strongly with its pallor. She held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was swathed in a piece of black material.
"Put down your doll," said Miss Min. "What do you mean by bringing her here?"
"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I have. My papa gave her to me."
She had always made Miss Min feel secretly unfortable, and she did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold steadiness with which Miss Min felt it difficult to cope--perhaps because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman thing.
"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You will have to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful."
Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a word.
"Everything will be very different now," Miss Min went on. "I suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you."
"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I am quite poor."
"You are a beggar," said Miss Min, her temper rising at the recolle of what all this meant. "It appears that you have ions and no home, and no oo take care of you."
For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again said nothing.
"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Min, sharply. "Are you so stupid that you ot uand? I tell you that you are quite alone in the world, and have no oo do anything for you, unless I choose to keep you here out of charity."
"I uand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a sound as if she had gulped down something which rose ihroat. "I uand."
"That doll," cried Miss Min, pointing to the splendid birthday gift seated near--"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical, extravagant things--I actually paid the bill for her!"
Sara turned her head toward the chair.
"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little mournful voice had an odd sound.
"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Min. "And she is mine, not yours. Everything you own is mine."
"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want it."
If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Min might almost have had more patieh her. She was a woman who liked to domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Saras pale little steadfast fad heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if her might was bei naught.
"Dont put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of thing is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your pony will be sent away--your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your oldest and plai clothes--your extravagant ones are no longer suited to your station. You are like Becky--you must work for your living."
To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the childs eyes--a shade of relief.
" I work?" she said. "If I work it will not matter so much. What I do?"
"You do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a sharp child, and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful I may let you stay here. You speak French well, and you help with the younger children."
"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I teach them. I like them, and they like me."
"Dont talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss Min. "You will have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands and help i as well as in the schoolroom. If you dont please me, you will be sent away. Remember that. Now go."
Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul, she was thinking deep and strahings. Theuro leave the room.
"Stop!" said Miss Min. "Dont you io thank me?"
Sara paused, and all the deep, strahoughts surged up in her breast.
"What for?" she said.
"For my kio you," replied Miss Min. "For my kindness in giving you a home."
Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved up and down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce way.
"You are not kind," she said. "You are not kind, and it is not a home." And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Min could stop her or do anything but stare after her with stony anger.
She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she held Emily tightly against her side.
"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could speak--if she could speak!"
She meant to go to her room and lie down oiger-skin, with her cheek upon the great cats head, and look into the fire and think and think and think. But just before she reached the landing Miss Amelia came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood before it, looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt secretly ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do.
"You--you are not to go in there," she said.
"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace.
"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little.
Somehow, all at once, Sara uood. She realized that this was the beginning of the ge Miss Min had spoken of.
"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not shake.
"You are to sleep iiext to Becky."
Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She turned, and mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow, and covered with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away and leaving far behihe world in which that other child, who no longer seemed herself, had lived. This child, in her short, tight old frock, climbing the stairs to the attic, was quite a different creature.
When she reached the attic door and ope, her heart gave a dreary little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked about her.
Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places. There was a rusty grate, an old iroead, and a hard bed covered with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be used downstairs had bee up. Uhe skylight in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky, there stood an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat down. She seldom cried. She did not ow. She laid Emily across her knees and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there, her little black head resting on the black draperies, not saying one word, not making one sound.
And as she sat in this silehere came a lo at the door-- such a low, humble ohat she did not at first hear it, and, indeed, was not roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a poor tear-smeared face appeared peeping round it. It was Beckys face, and Becky had been g furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes with her kit apron until she looked strange indeed.
"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you allow me--jest to e in?"
Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile, and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through the loving mournfulness of Beckys streaming eyes--her face looked more like a childs not so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and gave a little sob.
"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only two little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is. Theres no differenow. Im not a princess anymore."
Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast, kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain.
"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken. "Whatsever appens to you--whatsever--youd be a princess all the same--an nothin couldnt make you nothin different."
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