A Little Princess
to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had given them
pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went pale, and for
a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence.
"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it, indeed!"
Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her manner
was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica
Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was
really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.
But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust
the sixpence into her hand.
"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly. "You
can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!"
There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so
likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that
Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a
cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it
must be admitted her cheeks burned.
"Thank you," she said. "You are a kind, kind little darling thing."
And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away, trying to
smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining
through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but
until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar.
As the Large Family's carriage drove away, the children inside it were
talking with interested excitement.
"Oh, Donald," (this was Guy Clarence's name), Janet exclaimed
alarmedly, "why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I'm sure
she is not a beggar!"
"She didn't speak like a beggar!" cried Nora. "And her face didn't
really look like a beggar's face!"
"Besides, she didn't beg," said Janet. "I was so afraid she might be
angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for
beggars when they are not beggars."
"She wasn't angry," said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm.
"She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little darling
thing. And I was!"--stoutly. "It was my whole sixpence."
Janet and Nora exchanged glances.
"A beggar girl would never have said that," decided Janet. "She would
have said, 'Thank yer kindly, little gentleman--thank yer, sir;' and
perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy."
Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large Family
was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to
appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions
concerning her were held round the fire.
"She is a kind of servant at the seminary," Janet said. "I don't
believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan. But she is
not a beggar, however shabby she looks."
And afterward she was called by all of them,
"The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar," which was, of course, rather a
long name, and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said
it in a hurry.
Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit
of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large Family
increased--as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love
increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look
forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to
give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her,
and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her
and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to
feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows
that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of
the attic window, and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter
of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds
appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the
crumbs she scattered. With Melchisedec she had become so intimate that
he actually brought Mrs. Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and
then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and,
somehow, he looked quite as if he understood.
There had grown in her mind rather a strange feeling about Emily, who
always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one of her moments
of great desolateness. She would have liked to believe or pretend to
believe that Emily understood and sympathized with her. She did not
like to own to herself that her only companion could feel and hear
nothing. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to
her on the old red footstool, and stare and pretend about her until her
own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like
fear--particularly at night when everything was so still, when the only
sound in the attic was the occasional sudden scurry and squeak of
Melchisedec's family in the wall. One of her "pretends" was that Emily
was a kind of good witch who could protect her. Sometimes, after she
had stared at her until she was wrought up to the highest pitch of
fancifulness, she would ask her questions and find herself ALMOST
feeling as if she would presently answer. But she never did.
"As to answering, though," said Sara, trying to console herself, "I
don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When
people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to
say a word--just to look at them and THINK. Miss Minchin turns pale
with rage when I do it, Miss Amelia looks frightened, and so do the
girls. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are
stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your
rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they
hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what
makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer
your enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I
am like myself. Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends, even.
She keeps it all in her heart."
But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, she did
not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she had been
sent here and there, sometimes on long errands through wind and cold
and rain, she came in wet and hungry, and was sent out again because
nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that her slim
legs might be tired and her small body might be chilled; when she had
been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks for thanks; when
the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss Minchin had been in
her worst mood, and when she had seen the girls sneering among
themselves at her shabbiness--then she was not always able to comfort
her sore, proud, desolate heart with fancies when Emily merely sat
upright in her old chair and stared.
One of these nights, when she came up to the attic cold and hungry,
with a tempest raging in her young breast, Emily's stare seemed so
vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so inexpressive, that Sara lost all
control over herself. There was nobody but Emily--no one in the world.
And there she sat.
"I shall die presently," she said at first.
Emily simply stared.
"I can't bear this," said the poor child, trembling. "I know I shall
die. I'm cold; I'm wet; I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand
miles today, and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until
night. And because I could not find that last thing the cook sent me
for, they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because
my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now.
And they laughed. Do you hear?"
She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly
a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage
hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of
sobbing--Sara who never cried.
"You are nothing but a DOLL!" she cried. "Nothing but a
doll--doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust.
You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a
DOLL!" Emily lay on the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up
over her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she was
calm, even dignified. Sara hid her face in her arms. The rats in the
wall began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble.
Melchisedec was chastising some of his family.
Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to
break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised
her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the
side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of
glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook
her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile.
"You can't help being a doll," she said with a resigned sigh, "any more
than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We are not all
made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." And she kissed her and
shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her chair.
She had wished very much that some one would take the empty house next
door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near
hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open
someday and a head and shoulders rising out of the square aperture.
"If it looked a nice head," she thought, "I might begin by saying,
'Good morning,' and all sorts of things might happen. But, of course,
it's not really likely that anyone but under servants would sleep
there."
One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit to the
grocer's, the butcher's, and the baker's, she saw, to her great
delight, that during her rather prolonged absence, a van full of
furniture had stopped before the next house, the front doors were
thrown open, and men in shirt sleeves were going in and out carrying
heavy packages and pieces of furniture.
"It's taken!" she said. "It really IS taken! Oh, I do hope a nice
head will look out of the attic window!"
She would almost have liked to join the group of loiterers who had
stopped on the pavement to watch the things carried in. She had an idea
that if she could see some of the furniture she could guess something
about the people it belonged to.
"Miss Minchin's tables and chairs are just like her," she thought; "I
remember thinking that the first minute I saw her, even though I was so
little. I told papa afterward, and he laughed and said it was true. I
am sure the Large Family have fat, comfortable armchairs and sofas, and
I can see that their red-flowery wallpaper is exactly like them. It's
warm and cheerful and kind-looking and happy."
She was sent out for parsley to the greengrocer's later in the day, and
when she came up the area steps her heart gave quite a quick beat of
recognition. Several pieces of furniture had been set out of the van
upon the pavement. There was a beautiful table of elaborately wrought
teakwood, and some chairs, and a screen covered with rich Oriental
embroidery. The sight of them gave her a weird, homesick feeling. She
had seen things so like them in India. One of the things Miss Minchin
had taken from her was a carved teakwood desk her father had sent her.
"They are beautiful things," she said; "they look as if they ought to
belong to a nice person. All the things look rather grand. I suppose
it is a rich family."
The vans of furniture came and were unloaded and gave place to others
all the day. Several times it so happened that Sara had an opportunity
of seeing things carried in. It became plain that she had been right
in guessing that the newcomers were people of large means. All the