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

15
The Magic
When Sara had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass closing
the shutters, and caught her glimpse of this room also.
"It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside," was the thought
which crossed her mind.
There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian gentleman
was sitting before it. His head was resting in his hand, and he looked as lonely
and unhappy as ever.
"Poor man!" said Sara. "I wonder what you are supposing."
And this was what he was "supposing" at that very moment.
"Suppose," he was thinking, "suppose—even if Carmichael traces the people
to Moscow—the little girl they took from Madame Pascal's school in Paris is
NOT the one we are in search of. Suppose she proves to be quite a different
child. What steps shall I take next?"
When Sara went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come
downstairs to scold the cook.
"Where have you wasted your time?" she demanded. "You have been out for
hours."
"It was so wet and muddy," Sara answered, "it was hard to walk, because my
shoes were so bad and slipped about."
"Make no excuses," said Miss Minchin, "and tell no falsehoods."
Sara went in to the cook. The cook had received a severe lecture and was in a
fearful temper as a result. She was only too rejoiced to have someone to vent her

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rage on, and Sara was a convenience, as usual.
"Why didn't you stay all night?" she snapped.
Sara laid her purchases on the table.
"Here are the things," she said.
The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage humor
indeed.
"May I have something to eat?" Sara asked rather faintly.
"Tea's over and done with," was the answer. "Did you expect me to keep it
hot for you?"
Sara stood silent for a second.
"I had no dinner," she said next, and her voice was quite low. She made it low
because she was afraid it would tremble.
"There's some bread in the pantry," said the cook. "That's all you'll get at this
time of day."
Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in
too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with it. It was always safe and
easy to vent her spite on Sara. Really, it was hard for the child to climb the three
long flights of stairs leading to her attic. She often found them long and steep
when she was tired; but tonight it seemed as if she would never reach the top.
Several times she was obliged to stop to rest. When she reached the top landing
she was glad to see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door. That
meant that Ermengarde had managed to creep up to pay her a visit. There was
some comfort in that. It was better than to go into the room alone and find it
empty and desolate. The mere presence of plump, comfortable Ermengarde,
wrapped in her red shawl, would warm it a little.
Yes; there Ermengarde was when she opened the door. She was sitting in the
middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely under her. She had never become
intimate with Melchisedec and his family, though they rather fascinated her.
When she found herself alone in the attic she always preferred to sit on the bed

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until Sara arrived. She had, in fact, on this occasion had time to become rather
nervous, because Melchisedec had appeared and sniffed about a good deal, and
once had made her utter a repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs and,
while he looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction.
"Oh, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come. Melchy WOULD sniff
about so. I tried to coax him to go back, but he wouldn't for such a long time. I
like him, you know; but it does frighten me when he sniffs right at me. Do you
think he ever WOULD jump?"
"No," answered Sara.
Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to look at her.
"You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you are quite pale."
"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool. "Oh, there's
Melchisedec, poor thing. He's come to ask for his supper."
Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for her
footstep. Sara was quite sure he knew it. He came forward with an affectionate,
expectant expression as Sara put her hand in her pocket and turned it inside out,
shaking her head.
"I'm very sorry," she said. "I haven't one crumb left. Go home, Melchisedec,
and tell your wife there was nothing in my pocket. I'm afraid I forgot because the
cook and Miss Minchin were so cross."
Melchisedec seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not
contentedly, back to his home.
"I did not expect to see you tonight, Ermie," Sara said. Ermengarde hugged
herself in the red shawl.
"Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old aunt," she
explained. "No one else ever comes and looks into the bedrooms after we are in
bed. I could stay here until morning if I wanted to."
She pointed toward the table under the skylight. Sara had not looked toward
it as she came in. A number of books were piled upon it. Ermengarde's gesture

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was a dejected one.
"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said. "There they are."
Sara looked round and got up at once. She ran to the table, and picking up the
top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For the moment she forgot her
discomforts.
"Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful! Carlyle's French Revolution. I have SO
wanted to read that!"
"I haven't," said Ermengarde. "And papa will be so cross if I don't. He'll
expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays. What SHALL I
do?"
Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited flush
on her cheeks.
"Look here," she cried, "if you'll lend me these books, _I'll_ read them—and
tell you everything that's in them afterward—and I'll tell it so that you will
remember it, too."
"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?"
"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember what I tell
them."
"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you'll do that,
and make me remember, I'll—I'll give you anything."
"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara. "I want your books—I
want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved.
"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them—but I don't. I'm
not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."
Sara was opening one book after the other. "What are you going to tell your
father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind.
"Oh, he needn't know," answered Ermengarde. "He'll think I've read them."

---

Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly. "That's almost like telling
lies," she said. "And lies—well, you see, they are not only wicked—they're
VULGAR. Sometimes"—reflectively—"I've thought perhaps I might do
something wicked—I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill Miss Minchin, you
know, when she was ill-treating me—but I COULDN'T be vulgar. Why can't you
tell your father _I_ read them?"
"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little discouraged by this
unexpected turn of affairs.
"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara. "And if I can tell it to you
in an easy way and make you remember it, I should think he would like that."
"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful Ermengarde. "You
would if you were my father."
"It's not your fault that—" began Sara. She pulled herself up and stopped
rather suddenly. She had been going to say, "It's not your fault that you are
stupid."
"That what?" Ermengarde asked.
"That you can't learn things quickly," amended Sara. "If you can't, you can't.
If I can—why, I can; that's all."
She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let her feel too
strongly the difference between being able to learn anything at once, and not
being able to learn anything at all. As she looked at her plump face, one of her
wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her.
"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be
kind is worth a great deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew everything on
earth and was like what she is now, she'd still be a detestable thing, and
everybody would hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and have been
wicked. Look at Robespierre—"
She stopped and examined Ermengarde's countenance, which was beginning
to look bewildered. "Don't you remember?" she demanded. "I told you about him
not long ago. I believe you've forgotten."

---

"Well, I don't remember ALL of it," admitted Ermengarde.
"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet things and
wrap myself in the coverlet and tell you over again."
She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against the wall, and
she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of slippers. Then she jumped on the
bed, and drawing the coverlet about her shoulders, sat with her arms round her
knees. "Now, listen," she said.
She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution, and told such
stories of it that Ermengarde's eyes grew round with alarm and she held her
breath. But though she was rather terrified, there was a delightful thrill in
listening, and she was not likely to forget Robespierre again, or to have any
doubts about the Princesse de Lamballe.
"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara explained.
"And she had beautiful floating blonde hair; and when I think of her, I never see
her head on her body, but always on a pike, with those furious people dancing
and howling."
It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had made, and for
the present the books were to be left in the attic.
"Now let's tell each other things," said Sara. "How are you getting on with
your French lessons?"
"Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you explained the
conjugations. Miss Minchin could not understand why I did my exercises so well
that first morning."
Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees.
"She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her sums so well," she said; "but
it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help her." She glanced round the
room. "The attic would be rather nice—if it wasn't so dreadful," she said,
laughing again. "It's a good place to pretend in."
The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the sometimes
almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she had not a sufficiently vivid

---

imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare occasions that she could reach
Sara's room she only saw the side of it which was made exciting by things which
were "pretended" and stories which were told. Her visits partook of the character
of adventures; and though sometimes Sara looked rather pale, and it was not to
be denied that she had grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not admit of
complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was almost ravenous with
hunger, as she was tonight. She was growing rapidly, and her constant walking
and running about would have given her a keen appetite even if she had had
abundant and regular meals of a much more nourishing nature than the
unappetizing, inferior food snatched at such odd times as suited the kitchen
convenience. She was growing used to a certain gnawing feeling in her young
stomach.
"I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and weary march,"
she often said to herself. She liked the sound of the phrase, "long and weary
march." It made her feel rather like a soldier. She had also a quaint sense of
being a hostess in the attic.
"If I lived in a castle," she argued, "and Ermengarde was the lady of another
castle, and came to see me, with knights and squires and vassals riding with her,
and pennons flying, when I heard the clarions sounding outside the drawbridge I
should go down to receive her, and I should spread feasts in the banquet hall and
call in minstrels to sing and play and relate romances. When she comes into the
attic I can't spread feasts, but I can tell stories, and not let her know disagreeable
things. I dare say poor chatelaines had to do that in time of famine, when their
lands had been pillaged." She was a proud, brave little chatelaine, and dispensed
generously the one hospitality she could offer—the dreams she dreamed—the
visions she saw—the imaginings which were her joy and comfort.
So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as well
as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered if her hunger
would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as if she had never been
quite so hungry before.
"I wish I was as thin as you, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly. "I believe you
are thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look so big, and look at the sharp little
bones sticking out of your elbow!"
Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up.

---

"I always was a thin child," she said bravely, "and I always had big green
eyes."
"I love your queer eyes," said Ermengarde, looking into them with
affectionate admiration. "They always look as if they saw such a long way. I love
them—and I love them to be green—though they look black generally."
"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the dark with them—
because I have tried, and I couldn't—I wish I could."
It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight which
neither of them saw. If either of them had chanced to turn and look, she would
have been startled by the sight of a dark face which peered cautiously into the
room and disappeared as quickly and almost as silently as it had appeared. Not
QUITE as silently, however. Sara, who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little
and looked up at the roof.
"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said. "It wasn't scratchy enough."
"What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled.
"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara.
"N-no," Ermengarde faltered. "Did you?" {another ed. has "No-no,"}
"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did. It sounded as if something
was on the slates—something that dragged softly."
"What could it be?" said Ermengarde. "Could it be—robbers?"
"No," Sara began cheerfully. "There is nothing to steal—"
She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the sound that
checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below, and it was Miss
Minchin's angry voice. Sara sprang off the bed, and put out the candle.
"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the darkness. "She is
making her cry."
"Will she come in here?" Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken.

---

"No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir."
It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs. Sara
could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she was angry
enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it sounded as if she was
driving Becky before her.
"You impudent, dishonest child!" they heard her say. "Cook tells me she has
missed things repeatedly."
"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing. "I was 'ungry enough, but 't warn't
me—never!"
"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice. "Picking and
stealing! Half a meat pie, indeed!"
"'T warn't me," wept Becky. "I could 'ave eat a whole un—but I never laid a
finger on it."
Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. The
meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became apparent that
she boxed Becky's ears.
"Don't tell falsehoods," she said. "Go to your room this instant."
Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in her
slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her door shut, and
knew that she threw herself upon her bed.
"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her pillow. "An' I never
took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her policeman."
Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was clenching her
little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her outstretched hands. She could
scarcely stand still, but she dared not move until Miss Minchin had gone down
the stairs and all was still.
"The wicked, cruel thing!" she burst forth. "The cook takes things herself and
then says Becky steals them. She DOESN'T! She DOESN'T! She's so hungry
sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash barrel!" She pressed her hands hard

---

against her face and burst into passionate little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing
this unusual thing, was overawed by it. Sara was crying! The unconquerable
Sara! It seemed to denote something new—some mood she had never known.
Suppose—suppose—a new dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow,
little mind all at once. She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the
table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle. When she
had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara, with her new thought
growing to definite fear in her eyes.
"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, "are—are—you never
told me—I don't want to be rude, but—are YOU ever hungry?"
It was too much just at that moment. The barrier broke down. Sara lifted her
face from her hands.
"Yes," she said in a new passionate way. "Yes, I am. I'm so hungry now that I
could almost eat you. And it makes it worse to hear poor Becky. She's hungrier
than I am."
Ermengarde gasped.
"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully. "And I never knew!"
"I didn't want you to know," Sara said. "It would have made me feel like a
street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar."
"No, you don't—you don't!" Ermengarde broke in. "Your clothes are a little
queer—but you couldn't look like a street beggar. You haven't a street-beggar
face."
"A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity," said Sara, with a short
little laugh in spite of herself. "Here it is." And she pulled out the thin ribbon
from her neck. "He wouldn't have given me his Christmas sixpence if I hadn't
looked as if I needed it."
Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of them. It
made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their eyes.
"Who was he?" asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had not been a
mere ordinary silver sixpence.

---

"He was a darling little thing going to a party," said Sara. "He was one of the
Large Family, the little one with the round legs—the one I call Guy Clarence. I
suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas presents and hampers full of
cakes and things, and he could see I had nothing."
Ermengarde gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had recalled
something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden inspiration.

---

"Oh, Sara!" she cried. "What a silly thing I am not to have thought of it!"
"Of what?"
"Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry. "This very
afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full of good things. I never touched
it, I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so bothered about papa's books."
Her words began to tumble over each other. "It's got cake in it, and little meat
pies, and jam tarts and buns, and oranges and red-currant wine, and figs and
chocolate. I'll creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now."
Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention of food has
sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengarde's arm.
"Do you think—you COULD?" she ejaculated.
"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door—opened it
softly—put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she went back to
Sara. "The lights are out. Everybody's in bed. I can creep—and creep—and no
one will hear."
It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden light
sprang into Sara's eyes.
"Ermie!" she said. "Let us PRETEND! Let us pretend it's a party! And oh,
won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?"
"Yes! Yes! Let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't hear."
Sara went to the wall. Through it she could hear poor Becky crying more
softly. She knocked four times.
"That means, 'Come to me through the secret passage under the wall,' she
explained. 'I have something to communicate.'"
Five quick knocks answered her.
"She is coming," she said.

---

Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky appeared. Her
eyes were red and her cap was sliding off, and when she caught sight of
Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron.
"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde.
"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because she is
going to bring a box of good things up here to us."
Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such excitement.
"To eat, miss?" she said. "Things that's good to eat?"
"Yes," answered Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party."
"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in Ermengarde. "I'll
go this minute!"
She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she dropped her red
shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one saw it for a minute or so. Becky
was too much overpowered by the good luck which had befallen her.
"Oh, miss! oh, miss!" she gasped; "I know it was you that asked her to let me
come. It—it makes me cry to think of it." And she went to Sara's side and stood
and looked at her worshipingly.
But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform her
world for her. Here in the attic—with the cold night outside—with the afternoon
in the sloppy streets barely passed—with the memory of the awful unfed look in
the beggar child's eyes not yet faded—this simple, cheerful thing had happened
like a thing of magic.
She caught her breath.
"Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before things get to
the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that
always. The worst thing never QUITE comes."
She gave Becky a little cheerful shake.

---

"No, no! You mustn't cry!" she said. "We must make haste and set the table."
"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room. "What'll we set it
with?"
Sara looked round the attic, too.
"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing.
That moment she saw something and pounced upon it. It was Ermengarde's
red shawl which lay upon the floor.
"Here's the shawl," she cried. "I know she won't mind it. It will make such a
nice red tablecloth."
They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it. Red is a
wonderfully kind and comfortable color. It began to make the room look
furnished directly.
"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara. "We must
pretend there is one!"
Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration. The rug was
laid down already.
"How soft and thick it is!" she said, with the little laugh which Becky knew
the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again delicately, as if she
felt something under it.
"Yes, miss," answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She was
always quite serious.
"What next, now?" said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over her
eyes. "Something will come if I think and wait a little"—in a soft, expectant
voice. "The Magic will tell me."
One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she called it,
thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her stand and
wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she would uncover an
enlightened, laughing face.

---

In a moment she did.
"There!" she cried. "It has come! I know now! I must look among the things
in the old trunk I had when I was a princess."
She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the attic for
her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. Nothing had been
left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find something. The Magic
always arranged that kind of thing in one way or another.
In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had been overlooked,
and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a relic. It contained a dozen
small white handkerchiefs. She seized them joyfully and ran to the table. She
began to arrange them upon the red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into
shape with the narrow lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells
for her as she did it.
"These are the plates," she said. "They are golden plates. These are the richly
embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain."
"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the information.
"You must pretend it," said Sara. "If you pretend it enough, you will see
them."
"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted herself
to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired.
Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very queer
indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in strange convulsive
contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at her sides. She looked as if she
was trying to lift some enormous weight.
"What is the matter, Becky?" Sara cried. "What are you doing?"
Becky opened her eyes with a start.
"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I was tryin' to
see it like you do. I almost did," with a hopeful grin. "But it takes a lot o'
stren'th."

---

"Perhaps it does if you are not used to it," said Sara, with friendly sympathy;
"but you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often. I wouldn't try so
hard just at first. It will come to you after a while. I'll just tell you what things
are. Look at these."
She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the
bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled the wreath
off.
"These are garlands for the feast," she said grandly. "They fill all the air with
perfume. There's a mug on the wash-stand, Becky. Oh—and bring the soap dish
for a centerpiece."
Becky handed them to her reverently.
"What are they now, miss?" she inquired. "You'd think they was made of
crockery—but I know they ain't."
"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the
mug. "And this"—bending tenderly over the soap dish and heaping it with roses
—"is purest alabaster encrusted with gems."
She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips which
made her look as if she were a creature in a dream.
"My, ain't it lovely!" whispered Becky.
"If we just had something for bonbon dishes," Sara murmured. "There!"—
darting to the trunk again. "I remember I saw something this minute."
It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but the
tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and was combined
with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick which was to light the
feast. Only the Magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a
red shawl and set with rubbish from a long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back
and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with
bated breath.
"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic—"is it the Bastille
now—or has it turned into somethin' different?"

---

"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet hall!"
"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to view
the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.
"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are given. It has a
vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney filled with blazing
oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers twinkling on every side."
"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under the
weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. To enter from
the chill darkness outside, and find one's self confronted by a totally
unanticipated festal board, draped with red, adorned with white napery, and
wreathed with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant indeed.
"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!"
"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old trunk. I asked my
Magic, and it told me to go and look."
"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are! They ain't
just—oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to Sara.
So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST
see it all: the golden platters—the vaulted spaces—the blazing logs—the
twinkling waxen tapers. As the things were taken out of the hamper—the frosted
cakes—the fruits—the bonbons and the wine—the feast became a splendid
thing.
"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde.
"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky.
Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.
"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said. "Pretend you are a princess now and this is
a royal feast."

---

"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we will be
your maids of honor."
"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how. YOU be
her."
"Well, if you want me to," said Sara.
But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.
"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed. "If we
light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it
was a real fire." She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow
which illuminated the room.
"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its not being
real."
She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.
"Doesn't it LOOK real?" she said. "Now we will begin the party."
She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to Ermengarde
and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream.
"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be seated at
the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent on a long journey, has
commanded me to feast you." She turned her head slightly toward the corner of
the room. "What, ho, there, minstrels! Strike up with your viols and bassoons.
Princesses," she explained rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had
minstrels to play at their feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the
corner. Now we will begin."
They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their hands—not
one of them had time to do more, when—they all three sprang to their feet and
turned pale faces toward the door—listening—listening.
Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each of
them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of all things
had come.

---

"It's—the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon the
floor.
"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white face.
"Miss Minchin has found us out."
Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale
herself, but it was with rage. She looked from the frightened faces to the banquet
table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of the burnt paper in the
grate.
"I have been suspecting something of this sort," she exclaimed; "but I did not
dream of such audacity. Lavinia was telling the truth."
So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret and
had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her ears for a
second time.
"You impudent creature!" she said. "You leave the house in the morning!"
Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. Ermengarde
burst into tears.
"Oh, don't send her away," she sobbed. "My aunt sent me the hamper. We're
—only—having a party."
"So I see," said Miss Minchin, witheringly. "With the Princess Sara at the
head of the table." She turned fiercely on Sara. "It is your doing, I know," she
cried. "Ermengarde would never have thought of such a thing. You decorated the
table, I suppose—with this rubbish." She stamped her foot at Becky. "Go to your
attic!" she commanded, and Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her
shoulders shaking.
Then it was Sara's turn again.
"I will attend to you tomorrow. You shall have neither breakfast, dinner, nor
supper!"
"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said Sara,
rather faintly.

---

"Then all the better. You will have something to remember. Don't stand there.
Put those things into the hamper again."
She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and caught
sight of Ermengarde's new books.
"And you"—to Ermengarde—"have brought your beautiful new books into
this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay there all day
tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would HE say if he knew where
you are tonight?"
Something she saw in Sara's grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her turn
on her fiercely.
"What are you thinking of?" she demanded. "Why do you look at me like
that?"
"I was wondering," answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day in
the schoolroom.
"What were you wondering?"
It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness in Sara's
manner. It was only sad and quiet.
"I was wondering," she said in a low voice, "what MY papa would say if he
knew where I am tonight."
Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before and her anger
expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate fashion. She flew at her and shook
her.
"You insolent, unmanageable child!" she cried. "How dare you! How dare
you!"
She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the hamper in a
jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde's arms, and pushed her before her
toward the door.
"I will leave you to wonder," she said. "Go to bed this instant." And she shut

---

the door behind herself and poor stumbling Ermengarde, and left Sara standing
quite alone.
The dream was quite at an end. The last spark had died out of the paper in the
grate and left only black tinder; the table was left bare, the golden plates and
richly embroidered napkins, and the garlands were transformed again into old
handkerchiefs, scraps of red and white paper, and discarded artificial flowers all
scattered on the floor; the minstrels in the minstrel gallery had stolen away, and
the viols and bassoons were still. Emily was sitting with her back against the
wall, staring very hard. Sara saw her, and went and picked her up with trembling
hands.
"There isn't any banquet left, Emily," she said. "And there isn't any princess.
There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille." And she sat down and hid
her face.
What would have happened if she had not hidden it just then, and if she had
chanced to look up at the skylight at the wrong moment, I do not know—perhaps
the end of this chapter might have been quite different—because if she had
glanced at the skylight she would certainly have been startled by what she would
have seen. She would have seen exactly the same face pressed against the glass
and peering in at her as it had peered in earlier in the evening when she had been
talking to Ermengarde.
But she did not look up. She sat with her little black head in her arms for
some time. She always sat like that when she was trying to bear something in
silence. Then she got up and went slowly to the bed.
"I can't pretend anything else—while I am awake," she said. "There wouldn't
be any use in trying. If I go to sleep, perhaps a dream will come and pretend for
me."
She suddenly felt so tired—perhaps through want of food—that she sat down
on the edge of the bed quite weakly.
"Suppose there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little dancing
flames," she murmured. "Suppose there was a comfortable chair before it—and
suppose there was a small table near, with a little hot—hot supper on it. And
suppose"—as she drew the thin coverings over her—"suppose this was a
beautiful soft bed, with fleecy blankets and large downy pillows. Suppose—

---

suppose—" And her very weariness was good to her, for her eyes closed and she
fell fast asleep.
She did not know how long she slept. But she had been tired enough to sleep
deeply and profoundly—too deeply and soundly to be disturbed by anything,
even by the squeaks and scamperings of Melchisedec's entire family, if all his
sons and daughters had chosen to come out of their hole to fight and tumble and
play.
When she awakened it was rather suddenly, and she did not know that any