Sara nodded.
You havent time to hear it now, Im afraid, she said; but if you will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. Its a lovely long one and Im always putting new bits to it.
Then, breathed Becky, devoutly, I wouldnt mind how heavy the coal-boxes was or what the cook done to me, if if I might have that to think of.
You may, said Sara. Ill tell it all to you.
When Becky went down-stairs, she was not the same Becky who had staggered up, loaded down by the weight of the coal-scuttle. She had an extra piece of cake in her pocket, and she had been fed and warmed, but not only by cake and fire. Something else had warmed and fed her, and the something else was Sara.
When she was gone Sara sat on her favorite perch on the end of her table. Her feet were on a chair, her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands.
If I was a princess a real princess, she murmured, I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. Ill pretend that to do things people like is scattering largess. Ive scattered largess.
CHAPTER VI THE DIAMOND-MINES
My mamma has a diamond ring which cost forty pounds, she said. And it is not a big one, either. If there were mines full of diamonds, people would be so rich it would be ridiculous.
Perhaps Sara will be so rich that she will be ridiculous, giggled Jessie.
Shes ridiculous without being rich, Lavinia sniffed.
I believe you hate her, said Jessie.
No, I dont, snapped Lavinia. But I dont believe in mines full of diamonds.
Well, people have to get them from somewhere, said Jessie. Lavinia, with a new giggle, what do you think Gertrude says?
I dont know, Im sure; and I dont care if its something more about that everlasting Sara.
Well, it is. One of her pretends is that she is a princess. She plays it all the time even in school. She says it makes her learn her lessons better. She wants Ermengarde to be one, too, but Ermengarde says she is too fat.
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 school-room 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 scoldings 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 shes so fond of her, why doesnt 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 school-room, 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 school-room 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 some one 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 school-room 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.