A Little Princess
called home for a few weeks. When she came back she did not see Sara
for a day or two, and when she met her for the first time she
encountered her coming down a corridor with her arms full of garments
which were to be taken downstairs to be mended. Sara herself had
already been taught to mend them. She looked pale and unlike herself,
and she was attired in the queer, outgrown frock whose shortness showed
so much thin black leg.
Ermengarde was too slow a girl to be equal to such a situation. She
could not think of anything to say. She knew what had happened, but,
somehow, she had never imagined Sara could look like this--so odd and
poor and almost like a servant. It made her quite miserable, and she
could do nothing but break into a short hysterical laugh and
exclaim--aimlessly and as if without any meaning, "Oh, Sara, is that
you?"
"Yes," answered Sara, and suddenly a strange thought passed through her
mind and made her face flush. She held the pile of garments in her
arms, and her chin rested upon the top of it to keep it steady.
Something in the look of her straight-gazing eyes made Ermengarde lose
her wits still more. She felt as if Sara had changed into a new kind
of girl, and she had never known her before. Perhaps it was because she
had suddenly grown poor and had to mend things and work like Becky.
"Oh," she stammered. "How--how are you?"
"I don't know," Sara replied. "How are you?"
"I'm--I'm quite well," said Ermengarde, overwhelmed with shyness. Then
spasmodically she thought of something to say which seemed more
intimate. "Are you--are you very unhappy?" she said in a rush.
Then Sara was guilty of an injustice. Just at that moment her torn
heart swelled within her, and she felt that if anyone was as stupid as
that, one had better get away from her.
"What do you think?" she said. "Do you think I am very happy?" And she
marched past her without another word.
In course of time she realized that if her wretchedness had not made
her forget things, she would have known that poor, dull Ermengarde was
not to be blamed for her unready, awkward ways. She was always
awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid she was given to being.
But the sudden thought which had flashed upon her had made her
over-sensitive.
"She is like the others," she had thought. "She does not really want
to talk to me. She knows no one does."
So for several weeks a barrier stood between them. When they met by
chance Sara looked the other way, and Ermengarde felt too stiff and
embarrassed to speak. Sometimes they nodded to each other in passing,
but there were times when they did not even exchange a greeting.
"If she would rather not talk to me," Sara thought, "I will keep out of
her way. Miss Minchin makes that easy enough."
Miss Minchin made it so easy that at last they scarcely saw each other
at all. At that time it was noticed that Ermengarde was more stupid
than ever, and that she looked listless and unhappy. She used to sit
in the window-seat, huddled in a heap, and stare out of the window
without speaking. Once Jessie, who was passing, stopped to look at her
curiously.
"What are you crying for, Ermengarde?" she asked.
"I'm not crying," answered Ermengarde, in a muffled, unsteady voice.
"You are," said Jessie. "A great big tear just rolled down the bridge
of your nose and dropped off at the end of it. And there goes another."
"Well," said Ermengarde, "I'm miserable--and no one need interfere."
And she turned her plump back and took out her handkerchief and boldly
hid her face in it.
That night, when Sara went to her attic, she was later than usual. She
had been kept at work until after the hour at which the pupils went to
bed, and after that she had gone to her lessons in the lonely
schoolroom. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was surprised
to see a glimmer of light coming from under the attic door.
"Nobody goes there but myself," she thought quickly, "but someone has
lighted a candle."
Someone had, indeed, lighted a candle, and it was not burning in the
kitchen candlestick she was expected to use, but in one of those
belonging to the pupils' bedrooms. The someone was sitting upon the
battered footstool, and was dressed in her nightgown and wrapped up in
a red shawl. It was Ermengarde.
"Ermengarde!" cried Sara. She was so startled that she was almost
frightened. "You will get into trouble."
Ermengarde stumbled up from her footstool. She shuffled across the
attic in her bedroom slippers, which were too large for her. Her eyes
and nose were pink with crying.
"I know I shall--if I'm found out." she said. "But I don't care--I
don't care a bit. Oh, Sara, please tell me. What is the matter? Why
don't you like me any more?"
Something in her voice made the familiar lump rise in Sara's throat. It
was so affectionate and simple--so like the old Ermengarde who had
asked her to be "best friends." It sounded as if she had not meant
what she had seemed to mean during these past weeks.
"I do like you," Sara answered. "I thought--you see, everything is
different now. I thought you--were different."
Ermengarde opened her wet eyes wide.
"Why, it was you who were different!" she cried. "You didn't want to
talk to me. I didn't know what to do. It was you who were different
after I came back."
Sara thought a moment. She saw she had made a mistake.
"I AM different," she explained, "though not in the way you think. Miss
Minchin does not want me to talk to the girls. Most of them don't want
to talk to me. I thought--perhaps--you didn't. So I tried to keep out
of your way."
"Oh, Sara," Ermengarde almost wailed in her reproachful dismay. And
then after one more look they rushed into each other's arms. It must
be confessed that Sara's small black head lay for some minutes on the
shoulder covered by the red shawl. When Ermengarde had seemed to
desert her, she had felt horribly lonely.
Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sara clasping her
knees with her arms, and Ermengarde rolled up in her shawl. Ermengarde
looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly.
"I couldn't bear it any more," she said. "I dare say you could live
without me, Sara; but I couldn't live without you. I was nearly DEAD.
So tonight, when I was crying under the bedclothes, I thought all at
once of creeping up here and just begging you to let us be friends
again."
"You are nicer than I am," said Sara. "I was too proud to try and make
friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am
NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps"--wrinkling her
forehead wisely--"that is what they were sent for."
"I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly.
"Neither do I--to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly. "But I
suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it. There
MIGHT"--doubtfully--"be good in Miss Minchin."
Ermengarde looked round the attic with a rather fearsome curiosity.
"Sara," she said, "do you think you can bear living here?"
Sara looked round also.
"If I pretend it's quite different, I can," she answered; "or if I
pretend it is a place in a story."
She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for her. It
had not worked for her at all since her troubles had come upon her. She
had felt as if it had been stunned.
"Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of Monte
Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. And think of the people in
the Bastille!"
"The Bastille," half whispered Ermengarde, watching her and beginning
to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French Revolution
which Sara had been able to fix in her mind by her dramatic relation of
them. No one but Sara could have done it.
A well-known glow came into Sara's eyes.
"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, "that will be a good place to
pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been here for
years and years--and years; and everybody has forgotten about me. Miss
Minchin is the jailer--and Becky"--a sudden light adding itself to the
glow in her eyes--"Becky is the prisoner in the next cell."
She turned to Ermengarde, looking quite like the old Sara.
"I shall pretend that," she said; "and it will be a great comfort."
Ermengarde was at once enraptured and awed.
"And will you tell me all about it?" she said. "May I creep up here at
night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have made up in the
day? It will seem as if we were more 'best friends' than ever."
"Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and mine has
tried you and proved how nice you are."
9
Melchisedec
The third person in the trio was Lottie. She was a small thing and did
not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by the
alteration she saw in her young adopted mother. She had heard it
rumored that strange things had happened to Sara, but she could not
understand why she looked different--why she wore an old black frock
and came into the schoolroom only to teach instead of to sit in her
place of honor and learn lessons herself. There had been much
whispering among the little ones when it had been discovered that Sara
no longer lived in the rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state.
Lottie's chief difficulty was that Sara said so little when one asked
her questions. At seven mysteries must be made very clear if one is to
understand them.
"Are you very poor now, Sara?" she had asked confidentially the first
morning her friend took charge of the small French class. "Are you as
poor as a beggar?" She thrust a fat hand into the slim one and opened
round, tearful eyes. "I don't want you to be as poor as a beggar."
She looked as if she was going to cry. And Sara hurriedly consoled her.
"Beggars have nowhere to live," she said courageously. "I have a place
to live in."
"Where do you live?" persisted Lottie. "The new girl sleeps in your
room, and it isn't pretty any more."
"I live in another room," said Sara.
"Is it a nice one?" inquired Lottie. "I want to go and see it."
"You must not talk," said Sara. "Miss Minchin is looking at us. She
will be angry with me for letting you whisper."
She had found out already that she was to be held accountable for
everything which was objected to. If the children were not attentive,
if they talked, if they were restless, it was she who would be reproved.
But Lottie was a determined little person. If Sara would not tell her
where she lived, she would find out in some other way. She talked to
her small companions and hung about the elder girls and listened when
they were gossiping; and acting upon certain information they had
unconsciously let drop, she started late one afternoon on a voyage of
discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of, until
she reached the attic floor. There she found two doors near each other,
and opening one, she saw her beloved Sara standing upon an old table
and looking out of a window.
"Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast because the
attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world.
Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs.
Sara turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to be
aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and any one
chanced to hear, they were both lost. She jumped down from her table
and ran to the child.
"Don't cry and make a noise," she implored. "I shall be scolded if you
do, and I have been scolded all day. It's--it's not such a bad room,
Lottie."
"Isn't it?" gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit her lip.
She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted