oke
in a manner which had an effect even upon Miss Minchin. It almost
seemed for the moment to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must
be some real power hidden behind this candid daring.

"What?" she exclaimed. "Found out what?"

"That I really was a princess," said Sara, "and could do
anything--anything I liked."

Every pair of eyes in the room widened to its full limit. Lavinia
leaned forward on her seat to look.

"Go to your room," cried Miss Minchin, breathlessly, "this instant!
Leave the schoolroom! Attend to your lessons, young ladies!"

Sara made a little bow.

"Excuse me for laughing if it was impolite," she said, and walked out
of the room, leaving Miss Minchin struggling with her rage, and the
girls whispering over their books.

"Did you see her? Did you see how queer she looked?" Jessie broke
out. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be
something. Suppose she should!"

12

The Other Side of the Wall

When one lives in a row of houses, it is interesting to think of the
things which are being done and said on the other side of the wall of
the very rooms one is living in. Sara was fond of amusing herself by
trying to imagine the things hidden by the wall which divided the
Select Seminary from the Indian gentleman's house. She knew that the
schoolroom was next to the Indian gentleman's study, and she hoped that
the wall was thick so that the noise made sometimes after lesson hours
would not disturb him.

"I am growing quite fond of him," she said to Ermengarde; "I should not
like him to be disturbed. I have adopted him for a friend. You can do
that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them,
and think about them and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like
relations. I'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call
twice a day."

"I have very few relations," said Ermengarde, reflectively, "and I'm
very glad of it. I don't like those I have. My two aunts are always
saying, 'Dear me, Ermengarde! You are very fat. You shouldn't eat
sweets,' and my uncle is always asking me things like, 'When did Edward
the Third ascend the throne?' and, 'Who died of a surfeit of lampreys?'"

Sara laughed.

"People you never speak to can't ask you questions like that," she
said; "and I'm sure the Indian gentleman wouldn't even if he was quite
intimate with you. I am fond of him."

She had become fond of the Large Family because they lo