A Little Princess (27 page)

"Thank you," said Sara. "You see, I know what it is to be
hungry, and it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it
away."

"Yes, yes, my dear," said the Indian gentleman. "Yes, yes, it
must be. Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near
my knee, and only remember you are a princess."

"Yes," said Sara, smiling; "and I can give buns and bread to the
populace." And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian
gentleman (he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes)
drew her small dark head down on his knee and stroked her hair.

The next morning, Miss Minchin, in looking out of her window, saw
the things she perhaps least enjoyed seeing. The Indian
gentleman's carriage, with its tall horses, drew up before the
door of the next house, and its owner and a little figure, warm
with soft, rich furs, descended the steps to get into it. The
little figure was a familiar one, and reminded Miss Minchin of
days in the past. It was followed by another as familiar—the
sight of which she found very irritating. It was Becky, who, in
the character of delighted attendant, always accompanied her
young mistress to her carriage, carrying wraps and belongings.
Already Becky had a pink, round face.

A little later the carriage drew up before the door of the
baker's shop, and its occupants got out, oddly enough, just as
the bun-woman was putting a tray of smoking-hot buns into the
window.

When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her,
and, leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a
moment she looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-
natured face lighted up.

"I'm sure that I remember you, miss," she said. "And yet—"

"Yes," said Sara; "once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and—
"

"And you gave five of 'em to a beggar child," the woman broke in
on her. "I've always remembered it. I couldn't make it out at
first." She turned round to the Indian gentleman and spoke her
next words to him. "I beg your pardon, sir, but there's not many
young people that notices a hungry face in that way; and I've
thought of it many a time. Excuse the liberty, miss,"—to Sara—
"but you look rosier and—well, better than you did that—that—"

"I am better, thank you," said Sara. "And—I am much happier—
and I have come to ask you to do something for me."

"Me, miss!" exclaimed the bun-woman, smiling cheerfully. "Why,
bless you! Yes, miss. What can I do?"

And then Sara, leaning on the counter, made her little proposal
concerning the dreadful days and the hungry waifs and the buns.

The woman watched her, and listened with an astonished face.

"Why, bless me!" she said again when she had heard it all; "it'll
be a pleasure to me to do it. I am a working-woman myself and
cannot afford to do much on my own account, and there's sights of
trouble on every side; but, if you'll excuse me, I'm bound to say
I've given away many a bit of bread since that wet afternoon,
just along o' thinking of you—an' how wet an' cold you was, an'
how hungry you looked; an' yet you gave away your hot buns as if
you was a princess."

The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sara
smiled a little, too, remembering what she had said to herself
when she put the buns down on the ravenous child's ragged lap.

"She looked so hungry," she said. "She was even hungrier than I
was."

"She was starving," said the woman. "Many's the time she's told
me of it since—how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a
wolf was a-tearing at her poor young insides."

"Oh, have you seen her since then?" exclaimed Sara. "Do you
know where she is?"

"Yes, I do," answered the woman, smiling more good-naturedly than
ever. "Why, she's in that there back room, miss, an' has been
for a month; an' a decent, well-meanin' girl she's goin' to turn
out, an' such a help to me in the shop an' in the kitchen as
you'd scarce believe, knowin' how she's lived."

She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and
the next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the
counter. And actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly
clothed, and looking as if she had not been hungry for a long
time. She looked shy, but she had a nice face, now that she was
no longer a savage, and the wild look had gone from her eyes.
She knew Sara in an instant, and stood and looked at her as if
she could never look enough.

"You see," said the woman, "I told her to come when she was
hungry, and when she'd come I'd give her odd jobs to do; an' I
found she was willing, and somehow I got to like her; and the end
of it was, I've given her a place an' a home, and she helps me,
an' behaves well, an' is as thankful as a girl can be. Her
name's Anne. She has no other."

The children stood and looked at each other for a few minutes;
and then Sara took her hand out of her muff and held it out
across the counter, and Anne took it, and they looked straight
into each other's eyes.

"I am so glad," Sara said. "And I have just thought of
something. Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you be the one to give
the buns and bread to the children. Perhaps you would like to do
it because you know what it is to be hungry, too."

"Yes, miss," said the girl.

And, somehow, Sara felt as if she understood her, though she
said so little, and only stood still and looked and looked after
her as she went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and
they got into the carriage and drove away.