ntleman--thank yer, sir;' and
perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy."

Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large Family
was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to
appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions
concerning her were held round the fire.

"She is a kind of servant at the seminary," Janet said. "I don't
believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan. But she is
not a beggar, however shabby she looks."

And afterward she was called by all of them,
"The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar," which was, of course, rather a
long name, and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said
it in a hurry.

Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit
of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large Family
increased--as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love
increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look
forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to
give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her,
and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her
and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to
feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows
that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of
the attic window, and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter
of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds
appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the
crumbs she scattered. With Melchisedec she had become so intimate that
he actually brought Mrs. Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and
then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and,
somehow, he looked quite as if he understood.

There had grown in her mind rather a strange feeling about Emily, who
always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one of her moments
of great desolateness. She would have liked to believe or pretend to
believe that Emily understood and sympathized with her. She did not
like to own to herself that her only companion could feel and hear
nothing. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to
her on the old red footstool, and stare and pretend about her until her
own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like
fear--particularly at night when e