finished giving them
their lessons, she was putting the French exercise-books together and
thinking, as she did it, of the various things royal personages in
disguise were called upon to do: Alfred the Great, for instance,
burning the cakes and getting his ears boxed by the wife of the
neat-herd. How frightened she must have been when she found out what
she had done. If Miss Minchin should find out that she--Sara, whose
toes were almost sticking out of her boots--was a princess--a real one!
The look in her eyes was exactly the look which Miss Minchin most
disliked. She would not have it; she was quite near her and was so
enraged that she actually flew at her and boxed her ears--exactly as
the neat-herd's wife had boxed King Alfred's. It made Sara start. She
wakened from her dream at the shock, and, catching her breath, stood
still a second. Then, not knowing she was going to do it, she broke
into a little laugh.

"What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child?" Miss Minchin
exclaimed.

It took Sara a few seconds to control herself sufficiently to remember
that she was a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting from the
blows she had received.

"I was thinking," she answered.

"Beg my pardon immediately," said Miss Minchin.

Sara hesitated a second before she replied.

"I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was rude," she said then;
"but I won't beg your pardon for thinking."

"What were you thinking?" demanded Miss Minchin.

"How dare you think? What were you thinking?"

Jessie tittered, and she and Lavinia nudged each other in unison. All
the girls looked up from their books to listen. Really, it always
interested them a little when Miss Minchin attacked Sara. Sara always
said something queer, and never seemed the least bit frightened. She
was not in the least frightened now, though her boxed ears were scarlet
and her eyes were as bright as stars.

"I was thinking," she answered grandly and politely, "that you did not
know what you were doing."

"That I did not know what I was doing?" Miss Minchin fairly gasped.

"Yes," said Sara, "and I was thinking what would happen if I were a
princess and you boxed my ears--what I should do to you. And I was
thinking that if I were one, you would never dare to do it, whatever I
said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would
be if you suddenly found out--"

She had the imagined future so clearly before her eyes that she sp