om 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 befor