," said Ermengarde; "I wish I wanted them, but I am not
clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."

Sara picked up the books and marched off with them. But when she was at
the door, she stopped and turned around.

"What are you going to tell your father?" she asked.

"Oh," said Ermengarde, "he needn't know; he'll think I've read them."

Sara looked down at the books; her heart really began to beat fast.

"I won't do it," she said rather slowly, "if you are going to tell him
lies about it--I don't like lies. Why can't you tell him I read them and
then told you about them?"

"But he wants me to read them," said Ermengarde.

"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, I should think he would
like that."

"He would like it better if I read them myself," replied Ermengarde.

"He will like it, I dare say, if you learn anything in any way," said
Sara. "I should, if I were your father."

And though this was not a flattering way of stating the case, Ermengarde
was obliged to admit it was true, and, after a little more argument,
gave in. And so she used afterward always to hand over her books to
Sara, and Sara would carry them to her garret and devour them; and after
she had read each volume, she would return it and tell Ermengarde about
it in a way of her own. She had a gift for making things interesting.
Her imagination helped her to make everything rather like a story,
and she managed this matter so well that Miss St. John gained more
information from her books than she would have gained if she had read
them three times over by her poor stupid little self. When Sara sat down
by her and began to tell some story of travel or history, she made the
travellers and historical people seem real; and Ermengarde used to sit
and regard her dramatic gesticulations, her thin little flushed cheeks,
and her shining, odd eyes with amazement.

"It sounds nicer than it seems in the book," she would say. "I never
cared about Mary, Queen of Scots, before, and I always hated the French
Revolution, but you make it seem like a story."

"It is a story," Sara would answer. "They are all stories. Everything is
a story--everything in this world. You are a story--I am a story--Miss
Minchin is a story. You can make a story out of anything."

"I can't," said Ermengarde.

Sara stared at her a minute reflectively.

"No," she said at last. "I suppose you co