A Little Princess (6 page)

On this afternoon, when she had sat down, the sensation of
relief to her short, aching legs had been so wonderful and
delightful that it had seemed to soothe her whole body, and the
glow of warmth and comfort from the fire had crept over her like
a spell, until, as she looked at the red coals, a tired, slow
smile stole over her smudged face, her head nodded forward
without her being aware of it, her eyes drooped, and she fell
fast asleep. She had really been only about ten minutes in the
room when Sara entered, but she was in as deep a sleep as if she
had been, like the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering for a hundred
years. But she did not look—poor Becky— like a Sleeping Beauty
at all. She looked only like an ugly, stunted, worn-out little
scullery drudge.

Sara seemed as much unlike her as if she were a creature from
another world.

On this particular afternoon she had been taking her dancing
lesson, and the afternoon on which the dancing master appeared
was rather a grand occasion at the seminary, though it occurred
every week. The pupils were attired in their prettiest frocks,
and as Sara danced particularly well, she was very much brought
forward, and Mariette was requested to make her as diaphanous and
fine as possible.

Today a frock the color of a rose had been put on her, and
Mariette had bought some real buds and made her a wreath to wear
on her black locks. She had been learning a new, delightful
dance in which she had been skimming and flying about the room,
like a large rose-colored butterfly, and the enjoyment and
exercise had brought a brilliant, happy glow into her face.

When she entered the room, she floated in with a few of the
butterfly steps—and there sat Becky, nodding her cap sideways
off her head.

"Oh!" cried Sara, softly, when she saw her. "That poor thing!"

It did not occur to her to feel cross at finding her pet chair
occupied by the small, dingy figure. To tell the truth, she was
quite glad to find it there. When the ill-used heroine of her
story wakened, she could talk to her. She crept toward her
quietly, and stood looking at her. Becky gave a little snore.

"I wish she'd waken herself," Sara said. "I don't like to waken
her. But Miss Minchin would be cross if she found out. I'll
just wait a few minutes."

She took a seat on the edge of the table, and sat swinging her
slim, rose-colored legs, and wondering what it would be best to
do. Miss Amelia might come in at any moment, and if she did,
Becky would be sure to be scolded.

"But she is so tired," she thought. "She is so tired!"

A piece of flaming coal ended her perplexity for her that very
moment. It broke off from a large lump and fell on to the
fender. Becky started, and opened her eyes with a frightened
gasp. She did not know she had fallen asleep. She had only sat
down for one moment and felt the beautiful glow—and here she
found herself staring in wild alarm at the wonderful pupil, who
sat perched quite near her, like a rose-colored fairy, with
interested eyes.

She sprang up and clutched at her cap. She felt it dangling
over her ear, and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh, she had
got herself into trouble now with a vengeance! To have
impudently fallen asleep on such a young lady's chair! She would
be turned out of doors without wages.

She made a sound like a big breathless sob.

"Oh, miss! Oh, miss!" she stuttered. "I arst yer pardon, miss!
Oh, I do, miss!"

Sara jumped down, and came quite close to her.

"Don't be frightened," she said, quite as if she had been
speaking to a little girl like herself. "It doesn't matter the
least bit."

"I didn't go to do it, miss," protested Becky. "It was the warm
fire—an' me bein' so tired. It—it WASN'T impertience!"

Sara broke into a friendly little laugh, and put her hand on her
shoulder.

"You were tired," she said; "you could not help it. You are not
really awake yet."

How poor Becky stared at her! In fact, she had never heard such
a nice, friendly sound in anyone's voice before. She was used to
being ordered about and scolded, and having her ears boxed. And
this one—in her rose-colored dancing afternoon splendor—was
looking at her as if she were not a culprit at all—as if she had
a right to be tired—even to fall asleep! The touch of the
soft, slim little paw on her shoulder was the most amazing thing
she had ever known.

"Ain't—ain't yer angry, miss?" she gasped. "Ain't yer goin' to
tell the missus?"

"No," cried out Sara. "Of course I'm not."

The woeful fright in the coal-smutted face made her suddenly so
sorry that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer
thoughts rushed into her mind. She put her hand against Becky's
cheek.

"Why," she said, "we are just the same—I am only a little girl
like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are
not me!"

Becky did not understand in the least. Her mind could not grasp
such amazing thoughts, and "an accident" meant to her a calamity
in which some one was run over or fell off a ladder and was
carried to "the 'orspital."

"A' accident, miss," she fluttered respectfully. "Is it?"

"Yes," Sara answered, and she looked at her dreamily for a
moment. But the next she spoke in a different tone. She
realized that Becky did not know what she meant.

"Have you done your work?" she asked. "Dare you stay here a few
minutes?"

Becky lost her breath again.

"Here, miss? Me?"

Sara ran to the door, opened it, and looked out and listened.

"No one is anywhere about," she explained. "If your bedrooms are
finished, perhaps you might stay a tiny while. I thought—
perhaps—you might like a piece of cake."

The next ten minutes seemed to Becky like a sort of delirium.
Sara opened a cupboard, and gave her a thick slice of cake. She
seemed to rejoice when it was devoured in hungry bites. She
talked and asked questions, and laughed until Becky's fears
actually began to calm themselves, and she once or twice
gathered boldness enough to ask a question or so herself, daring
as she felt it to be.

"Is that—" she ventured, looking longingly at the rose-colored
frock. And she asked it almost in a whisper. "Is that there
your best?"

"It is one of my dancing-frocks," answered Sara. "I like it,
don't you?"

For a few seconds Becky was almost speechless with admiration.
Then she said in an awed voice, "Onct I see a princess. I was
standin' in the street with the crowd outside Covin' Garden,
watchin' the swells go inter the operer. An' there was one
everyone stared at most. They ses to each other, 'That's the
princess.' She was a growed-up young lady, but she was pink all
over—gownd an' cloak, an' flowers an' all. I called her to
mind the minnit I see you, sittin' there on the table, miss. You
looked like her."

"I've often thought," said Sara, in her reflecting voice, "that
I should like to be a princess; I wonder what it feels like. I
believe I will begin pretending I am one."

Becky stared at her admiringly, and, as before, did not
understand her in the least. She watched her with a sort of
adoration. Very soon Sara left her reflections and turned to her
with a new question.

"Becky," she said, "weren't you listening to that story?"

"Yes, miss," confessed Becky, a little alarmed again. "I knowed
I hadn't orter, but it was that beautiful I—I couldn't help it."

"I liked you to listen to it," said Sara. "If you tell stories,
you like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to
listen. I don't know why it is. Would you like to hear the
rest?"

Becky lost her breath again.

"Me hear it?" she cried. "Like as if I was a pupil, miss! All
about the Prince—and the little white Mer-babies swimming about
laughing—with stars in their hair?"

Sara nodded.

"You haven't time to hear it now, I'm 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. It's a lovely long one—and I'm always putting new
bits to it."

"Then," breathed Becky, devoutly, "I wouldn't 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. "I'll tell it ALL to you."

When Becky went downstairs, 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. I'll
pretend that to do things people like is scattering largess.
I've scattered largess."

Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not
only Sara, but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it
the chief subject of conversation for weeks after it occurred.
In one of his letters Captain Crewe told a most interesting
story. A friend who had been at school with him when he was a
boy had unexpectedly come to see him in India. He was the owner
of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had been found, and
he was engaged in developing the mines. If all went as was
confidently expected, he would become possessed of such wealth as
it made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the
friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to
share in this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his
scheme. This, at least, was what Sara gathered from his letters.
It is true that any other business scheme, however magnificent,
would have had but small attraction for her or for the
schoolroom; but "diamond mines" sounded so like the Arabian
Nights that no one could be indifferent. Sara thought them
enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and Lottie, of
labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where
sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and
strange, dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengarde
delighted in the story, and Lottie insisted on its being retold
to her every evening. Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and
told Jessie that she didn't believe such things as diamond mines
existed.

"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.

"She's ridiculous without being rich," Lavinia sniffed.

"I believe you hate her," said Jessie.

"No, I don't," snapped Lavinia. "But I don't 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 don't know, I'm sure; and I don't care if it's 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
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.