n sent into the deserted school-room with a pile of books to learn
her lessons or practise at night. She had never been intimate with
the other pupils, and soon she became so shabby that, taking her queer
clothes together with her queer little ways, they began to look upon
her as a being of another world than their own. The fact was that, as
a rule, Miss Minchin's pupils were rather dull, matter-of-fact young
people, accustomed to being rich and comfortable; and Sara, with her
elfish cleverness, her desolate life, and her odd habit of fixing her
eyes upon them and staring them out of countenance, was too much for
them.

"She always looks as if she was finding you out," said one girl, who was
sly and given to making mischief. "I am," said Sara promptly, when
she heard of it. "That's what I look at them for. I like to know about
people. I think them over afterward."

She never made any mischief herself or interfered with any one. She
talked very little, did as she was told, and thought a great deal.
Nobody knew, and in fact nobody cared, whether she was unhappy or happy,
unless, perhaps, it was Emily, who lived in the attic and slept on the
iron bedstead at night. Sara thought Emily understood her feelings,
though she was only wax and had a habit of staring herself. Sara used to
talk to her at night.

"You are the only friend I have in the world," she would say to her.
"Why don't you say something? Why don't you speak? Sometimes I am sure
you could, if you would try. It ought to make you try, to know you are
the only thing I have. If I were you, I should try. Why don't you try?"

It really was a very strange feeling she had about Emily. It arose from
her being so desolate. She did not like to own to herself that her only
friend, her only companion, could feel and hear nothing. She wanted to
believe, or to pretend to believe, that Emily understood and sympathized
with her, that she heard her even though she did not speak in answer.
She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on
the old red footstool, and stare at her and think and pretend about her
until her own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like
fear, particularly at night, when the garret was so still, when the only
sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak and scurry of rats
in the wainscot. There were rat-holes in the garret, and Sara detested
rats, and was always glad Emily was with her when she heard their
h