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"She IS too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin."
Naturally, Jessie giggled again.
"She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you
THINK of, and what you DO." "I suppose she thinks she could be a princess if she was a beggar," said
Lavinia. "Let us begin to call her Your Royal Highness."
Lessons for the day were over, and they were sitting before the schoolroom fire, enjoying the time they liked
best. It was the time when Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia were taking their tea in the sitting room sacred to
themselves. At this hour a great deal of talking was done, and a great many secrets changed hands,
particularly if the younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run about noisily, which it
must be confessed they usually did. When they made an uproar the older girls usually interfered with scolding
and shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if they did not, Miss Minchin or
Miss Amelia would appear and put an end to festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke the door opened and Sara
entered with Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little dog.
"There she is, with that horrid child!" exclaimed Lavinia in a whisper. "If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she
keep her in her own room? She will begin howling about something in five minutes."
It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in the schoolroom, and had begged her
adopted parent to come with her. She joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled
herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It was a book about the French Revolution,
and she was soon lost in a harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille--men who had spent so many
years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who rescued them, their long, gray hair and
beards almost hid their faces, and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were like beings
in a dream.
She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be dragged back suddenly by a howl
from Lottie. Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was
suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation
which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to
manage.
"It makes me feel as if someone had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. "And as if I want
to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill- tempered."
She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the window-seat and jumped down from her
comfortable corner.
Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having first irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a
noise, had ended by falling down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and down in the
midst of a group of friends and enemies, who were alternately coaxing and scolding her.
"Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia commanded.
"I'm not a cry-baby . . . I'm not!" wailed Lottle. "Sara, Sa-- ra!"
"If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie. "Lottie darling, I'll give you a penny!"
The Legal Small Print 31
"I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at the fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on
it, burst forth again.
Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round her.
"Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara."
"She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie.
Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew.
"But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED." Lottle remembered that she had promised, but
she preferred to lift up her voice.
"I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't--a bit--of mamma."
"Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten? Don't you know that Sara is your mamma? Don't
you want Sara for your mamma?"
Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff.
"Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and I'll whisper a story to you."
"Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you--tell me--about the diamond mines?"
"The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled thing, I should like to SLAP her!"
Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had been very deeply absorbed in the book
about the Bastille, and she had had to recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go and take
care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was not fond of Lavinia.
"Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap YOU-- but I don't want to slap you!" restraining herself.
"At least I both want to slap you--and I should LIKE to slap you--but I WON'T slap you. We are not little
gutter children. We are both old enough to know better."
Here was Lavinia's opportunity.
"Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I believe. At least one of us is. The school ought
to be very fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil."
Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of
pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new "pretend"
about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to
be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. She felt the blood rush up into
her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages.
Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she
held her head up, and everybody listened to her.
"It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and
behave like one."
Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several times she had found that she could not think
The Legal Small Print 32
of a satisfactory reply when she was dealing with Sara. The reason for this was that, somehow, the rest always
seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She saw now that they were pricking up their ears
interestedly. The truth was, they liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear something more definite
about this one, and drew nearer Sara accordingly.
Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat.
"Dear me," she said, "I hope, when you ascend the throne, you won't forget us!"
"I won't," said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but stood quite still, and stared at her steadily as she
saw her take Jessie's arm and turn away.
After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as "Princess Sara" whenever they wished to
be particularly disdainful, and those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term of
affection. No one called her "princess" instead of "Sara," but her adorers were much pleased with the
picturesqueness and grandeur of the title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to
visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal boarding school.
To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon
when she had jumped up terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and grown, though it
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