A little Princess / Being the whole story of Sara Crewe now told for the first time

party. I hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your
appreciation of it by saying aloud all together, 'Thank you, Sara!'"

---

The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had done the morning Sara
remembered so well.
"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie jumped up
and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a curtsy—and it was
a very nice one.
"Thank you," she said, "for coming to my party."
"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Minchin. "That is what a real
princess does when the populace applauds her. Lavinia"—scathingly—"the
sound you just made was extremely like a snort. If you are jealous of your
fellow-pupil, I beg you will express your feelings in some more lady-like
manner. Now I will leave you to enjoy yourselves."
The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence always had
upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every seat was
empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs; the older ones wasted no
time in deserting theirs. There was a rush toward the boxes. Sara had bent over
one of them with a delighted face.
"These are books, I know," she said.
The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked
aghast.
"Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?" she exclaimed.
"Why, he's as bad as mine. Don't open them, Sara."
"I like them," Sara laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When she took
out the Last Doll it was so magnificent that the children uttered delighted groans
of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it in breathless rapture.
"She is almost as big as Lottie," someone gasped.
Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling.
"She's dressed for the theater," said Lavinia. "Her cloak is lined with ermine."
"Oh," cried Ermengarde, darting forward, "she has an opera-glass in her hand

---

—a blue-and-gold one!"
"Here is her trunk," said Sara. "Let us open it and look at her things."
She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded
clamoring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their contents.
Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were lace collars and
silk stockings and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel case containing a necklace
and a tiara which looked quite as if they were made of real diamonds; there was
a long sealskin and muff, there were ball dresses and walking dresses and
visiting dresses; there were hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie
forgot that they were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of
delight and caught up things to look at them.
"Suppose," Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, black-velvet
hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these splendors—"suppose she
understands human talk and feels proud of being admired."
"You are always supposing things," said Lavinia, and her air was very
superior.
"I know I am," answered Sara, undisturbedly. "I like it. There is nothing so
nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard
enough it seems as if it were real."
"It's all very well to suppose things if you have everything," said Lavinia.
"Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived in a garret?"
Sara stopped arranging the Last Doll's ostrich plumes, and looked thoughtful.
"I BELIEVE I could," she said. "If one was a beggar, one would have to
suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn't be easy."
She often thought afterward how strange it was that just as she had finished
saying this—just at that very moment—Miss Amelia came into the room.
"Sara," she said, "your papa's solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see Miss
Minchin, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments are laid in her
parlor, you had all better come and have your feast now, so that my sister can
have her interview here in the schoolroom."

---

Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many pairs of
eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into decorum, and then,
with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away, leaving the Last Doll sitting
upon a chair with the glories of her wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and
coats hung upon chair backs, piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their
seats.
Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the indiscretion
to linger a moment to look at these beauties—it really was an indiscretion.
"Go back to your work, Becky," Miss Amelia had said; but she had stopped
to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while she stood looking at
them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the threshold, and, being smitten
with terror at the thought of being accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted
under the table, which hid her by its tablecloth.
Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry
little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself also looked
rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the dry little gentleman
with an irritated and puzzled expression.
She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair.
"Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow," she said.
Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by the
Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his eyeglasses and
looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll herself did not seem to
mind this in the least. She merely sat upright and returned his gaze indifferently.
"A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive
material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly enough, that
young man."
Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her best
patron and was a liberty.
Even solicitors had no right to take liberties.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow," she said stiffly. "I do not understand."

---

"Birthday presents," said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, "to a child
eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it."
Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly.
"Captain Crewe is a man of fortune," she said. "The diamond mines alone—"
Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. "Diamond mines!" he broke out. "There
are none! Never were!"
Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair.
"What!" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"At any rate," answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, "it would have been
much better if there never had been any."
"Any diamond mines?" ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a
chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her.
"Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth," said Mr. Barrow.
"When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a businessman
himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend's diamond mines, or gold
mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends want his money to put into. The
late Captain Crewe—"
Here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp.
"The LATE Captain Crewe!" she cried out. "The LATE! You don't come to
tell me that Captain Crewe is—"
"He's dead, ma'am," Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died of
jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might not have
killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business troubles, and the
business troubles might not have put an end to him if the jungle fever had not
assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!"
Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken filled
her with alarm.

---

"What WERE his business troubles?" she said. "What WERE they?"
"Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends—and ruin."
Miss Minchin lost her breath.
"Ruin!" she gasped out.
"Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear friend
was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money into it,
and all Captain Crewe's. Then the dear friend ran away—Captain Crewe was
already stricken with fever when the news came. The shock was too much for
him. He died delirious, raving about his little girl—and didn't leave a penny."
Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in
her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select Seminary
at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed, and that Captain
Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame.
"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left NOTHING! That Sara
will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she is left on my hands a
little pauper instead of an heiress?"
Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make his own
freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay.
"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is certainly left on your
hands, ma'am—as she hasn't a relation in the world that we know of."
Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to open the
door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on joyfully and rather
noisily that moment over the refreshments.
"It is monstrous!" she said. "She's in my sitting room at this moment, dressed
in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my expense."
"She's giving it at your expense, madam, if she's giving it," said Mr. Barrow,
calmly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible for anything. There never was
a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune. Captain Crewe died without paying
OUR last bill—and it was a big one."

---

Miss Minchin turned back from the door in increased indignation. This was
worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being.
"That is what has happened to me!" she cried. "I was always so sure of his
payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the child. I paid the
bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous fantastic wardrobe. The child was
to have anything she wanted. She has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've
paid for all of them since the last cheque came."
Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the story of Miss
Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of his firm clear and related
the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular sympathy for irate keepers of
boarding schools.
"You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, "unless you
want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. She hasn't
a brass farthing to call her own."
"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it entirely his
duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?"
"There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his eyeglasses and
slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is dead. The child is left a pauper.
Nobody is responsible for her but you."
"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible!"
Miss Minchin became quite white with rage.
Mr. Barrow turned to go.
"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said uninterestedly. "Barrow &
Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry the thing has happened, of course."
"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly mistaken," Miss
Minchin gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I will turn her into the street!"
If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say quite
so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly brought-up child
whom she had always resented, and she lost all self-control.

---

Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door.
"I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented; "it wouldn't look well.
Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the establishment. Pupil
bundled out penniless and without friends."
He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He also
knew that Miss Minchin was a business woman, and would be shrewd enough to
see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make people speak
of her as cruel and hard-hearted.
"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "She's a clever child, I
believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she grows older."
"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!" exclaimed Miss
Minchin.
"I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow, with a little sinister smile. "I
am sure you will. Good morning!"
He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be confessed that Miss
Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had said was quite
true. She knew it. She had absolutely no redress. Her show pupil had melted into
nothingness, leaving only a friendless, beggared little girl. Such money as she
herself had advanced was lost and could not be regained.
And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell upon
her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had actually
been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this.
But as she started toward the door it was opened by Miss Amelia, who, when
she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a step in alarm.
"What IS the matter, sister?" she ejaculated.
Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered:
"Where is Sara Crewe?"
Miss Amelia was bewildered.

---

"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, she's with the children in your room, of
course."
"Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe?"—in bitter irony.
"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A BLACK one?"
"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?"
Miss Amelia began to turn pale.
"No—ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has only the old black
velvet, and she has outgrown it."
"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put the
black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has done with finery!"
Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry.
"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What CAN have happened?"
Miss Minchin wasted no words.
"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That
spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands."
Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair.
"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I shall never see
a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party of hers. Go and make her change
her frock at once."
"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?"
"This moment!" was the fierce answer. "Don't sit staring like a goose. Go!"
Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She knew, in fact,
that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do a great many
disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing to go into the midst
of a room full of delighted children, and tell the giver of the feast that she had
suddenly been transformed into a little beggar, and must go upstairs and put on

---

an old black frock which was too small for her. But the thing must be done. This
was evidently not the time when questions might be asked.
She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red. After
which she got up and went out of the room, without venturing to say another
word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had done just now, the
wisest course to pursue was to obey orders without any comment. Miss Minchin
walked across the room. She spoke to herself aloud without knowing that she
was doing it. During the last year the story of the diamond mines had suggested
all sorts of possibilities to her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make
fortunes in stocks, with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking
forward to gains, she was left to look back upon losses.
"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been pampered as if she
were a QUEEN." She was sweeping angrily past the corner table as she said it,
and the next moment she started at the sound of a loud, sobbing sniff which
issued from under the cover.
"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff was heard
again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table cover.
"How DARE you!" she cried out. "How dare you! Come out immediately!"
It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side,
and her face was red with repressed crying.
"If you please, 'm—it's me, mum," she explained. "I know I hadn't ought to.
But I was lookin' at the doll, mum—an' I was frightened when you come in—an'
slipped under the table."
"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss Minchin.
"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin'—I thought I
could slip out without your noticin', but I couldn't an' I had to stay. But I didn't
listen, mum—I wouldn't for nothin'. But I couldn't help hearin'."
Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady before her.
She burst into fresh tears.
"Oh, please, 'm," she said; "I dare say you'll give me warnin', mum—but I'm

---

so sorry for poor Miss Sara—I'm so sorry!"
"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Minchin.
Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks.
"Yes, 'm; I will, 'm," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just wanted to arst you:
Miss Sara—she's been such a rich young lady, an' she's been waited on, 'and and
foot; an' what will she do now, mum, without no maid? If—if, oh please, would
you let me wait on her after I've done my pots an' kettles? I'd do 'em that quick—
if you'd let me wait on her now she's poor. Oh," breaking out afresh, "poor little
Miss Sara, mum—that was called a princess."
Somehow, she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever. That the very
scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child—whom she realized
more fully than ever that she had never liked—was too much. She actually
stamped her foot.
"No—certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and on other people,
too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave your place."
Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room and
down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her pots and
kettles, and wept as if her heart would break.
"It's exactly like the ones in the stories," she wailed. "Them pore princess
ones that was drove into the world."
Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard as she did when Sara
came to her, a few hours later, in response to a message she had sent her.
Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had either been a
dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had happened in the life of
quite another little girl.
Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had been
removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put back into their
places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it always did—all traces of the
feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed her usual dress. The pupils had
been ordered to lay aside their party frocks; and this having been done, they had

---

returned to the schoolroom and huddled together in groups, whispering and
talking excitedly.
"Tell Sara to come to my room," Miss Minchin had said to her sister. "And
explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant scenes."
"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the strangest child I ever saw. She has
actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when Captain Crewe
went back to India. When I told her what had happened, she just stood quite still
and looked at me without making a sound. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and
bigger, and she went quite pale. When I had finished, she still stood staring for a
few seconds, and then her chin began to shake, and she turned round and ran out
of the room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she did
not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I was saying. It
made me feel quite queer not to be answered; and when you tell anything sudden
and strange, you expect people will say SOMETHING—whatever it is."
Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after she
had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself scarcely remembered
anything but that she walked up and down, saying over and over again to herself
in a voice which did not seem her own, "My papa is dead! My papa is dead!"
Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watching her from her chair, and
cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear—papa is dead? He is dead
in India—thousands of miles away."
When she came into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her summons,
her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. Her mouth was set
as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had suffered and was suffering. She
did not look in the least like the rose-colored butterfly child who had flown
about from one of her treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She
looked instead a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure.
She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast-aside black-velvet frock. It
was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long and thin, showing
themselves from beneath the brief skirt. As she had not found a piece of black
ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled loosely about her face and contrasted
strongly with its pallor. She held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was
swathed in a piece of black material.

---

"Put down your doll," said Miss Minchin. "What do you mean by bringing
her here?"
"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I have. My papa
gave her to me."
She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable, and she did
so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold steadiness with
which Miss Minchin felt it difficult to cope—perhaps because she knew she was
doing a heartless and inhuman thing.
"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You will have to work
and improve yourself and make yourself useful."
Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a word.
"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on. "I suppose
Miss Amelia has explained matters to you."
"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I am quite
poor."
"You are a beggar," said Miss Minchin, her temper rising at the recollection
of what all this meant. "It appears that you have no relations and no home, and
no one to take care of you."
For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again said nothing.
"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin, sharply. "Are you so
stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are quite alone in the
world, and have no one to do anything for you, unless I choose to keep you here
out of charity."
"I understand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a sound as if she
had gulped down something which rose in her throat. "I understand."
"That doll," cried Miss Minchin, pointing to the splendid birthday gift seated
near—"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical, extravagant things—I
actually paid the bill for her!"

---

Sara turned her head toward the chair.
"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little mournful voice had
an odd sound.
"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Minchin. "And she is mine, not yours.
Everything you own is mine."
"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want it."
If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin might
almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who liked to
domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara's pale little steadfast face
and heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if her might was being set at
naught.
"Don't put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of thing is past.
You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your pony will be sent away
—your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your oldest and plainest clothes—
your extravagant ones are no longer suited to your station. You are like Becky—
you must work for your living."
To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's eyes—a shade of
relief.
"Can I work?" she said. "If I can work it will not matter so much. What can I
do?"
"You can do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a sharp child,
and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful I may let you stay here.
You speak French well, and you can help with the younger children."
"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I can teach them. I like
them, and they like me."
"Don't talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss Minchin. "You will
have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands and help in the
kitchen as well as in the schoolroom. If you don't please me, you will be sent
away. Remember that. Now go."

---

Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul, she was
thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to leave the room.
"Stop!" said Miss Minchin. "Don't you intend to thank me?"
Sara paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her breast.
"What for?" she said.
"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my kindness in giving
you a home."
Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved up and
down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce way.
"You are not kind," she said. "You are NOT kind, and it is NOT a home."
And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Minchin could stop her
or do anything but stare after her with stony anger.
She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she held Emily
tightly against her side.
"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could speak—if she could
speak!"
She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her cheek
upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think and think and think.
But just before she reached the landing Miss Amelia came out of the door and
closed it behind her, and stood before it, looking nervous and awkward. The
truth was that she felt secretly ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do.
"You—you are not to go in there," she said.
"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace.
"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little.
Somehow, all at once, Sara understood. She realized that this was the
beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of.

---

"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not
shake.
"You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky."
Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She turned, and
mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow, and covered with
shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away and leaving far
behind her the world in which that other child, who no longer seemed herself,
had lived. This child, in her short, tight old frock, climbing the stairs to the attic,
was quite a different creature.
When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a dreary little
thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked about her.
Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was
whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places. There was
a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed covered with a faded coverlet.
Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be used downstairs had been sent up.
Under the skylight in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull
gray sky, there stood an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat down.
She seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across her knees and put
her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there, her little black
head resting on the black draperies, not saying one word, not making one sound.
And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door—such a low,
humble one that she did not at first hear it, and, indeed, was not roused until the
door was timidly pushed open and a poor tear-smeared face appeared peeping
round it. It was Becky's face, and Becky had been crying furtively for hours and
rubbing her eyes with her kitchen apron until she looked strange indeed.
"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I—would you allow me—jest
to come in?"
Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile, and
somehow she could not. Suddenly—and it was all through the loving
mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes—her face looked more like a child's not
so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and gave a little sob.
"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same—only two little

---

girls—just two little girls. You see how true it is. There's no difference now. I'm
not a princess anymore."
Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast, kneeling
beside her and sobbing with love and pain.
"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken. "Whats'ever
'appens to you—whats'ever—you'd be a princess all the same—an' nothin'
couldn't make you nothin' different."

---