A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Page A

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.
    "It makes me feel as if someone 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 schoolroom 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.
    "Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia
commanded.
    "I'm not a cry-baby . . . I'm not!" wailed Lottle. "Sara, Sa—
ra!"
    "If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie.
"Lottie darling, I'll give you a penny!"
    "I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at
the fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth
again.
    Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round
her.
    "Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara."
    "She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie.
    Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew.
    "But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED."
Lottle remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to
lift up her voice.
    "I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't—a bit—of
mamma."
    "Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten?
Don't you know that Sara is your mamma? Don't you want Sara for
your mamma?"
    Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff.
    "Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and
I'll whisper a story to you."
    "Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you—tell me—about the
diamond mines?"
    "The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled
thing, I should like to SLAP her!"
    Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she
had been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille,
and she had had to recall several things rapidly when she
realized that she must go and take care of her adopted child.
She was not an angel, and she was not fond of Lavinia.
    "Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap YOU—
but I don't want to slap you!" restraining herself. "At least I
both want to slap you—and I should LIKE to slap you—but I
WON'T slap you. We are not little gutter children. We are both
old enough to know better."
    Here was Lavinia's opportunity.
    "Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I
believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very
fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil."
    Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box
her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending