rted quite violently and sat
staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly, until she had
finished. Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his smile was one of
great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own
language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in
his native land--which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed
worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her,
with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin.

"Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her. She has not
LEARNED French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite."

"You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified,
turning to Sara.

"I--I tried," said Sara. "I--I suppose I did not begin right."

Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault
that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils
had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie were giggling behind
their French grammars, she felt infuriated.

"Silence, young ladies!" she said severely, rapping upon the desk.
"Silence at once!"

And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against her show
pupil.

3

Ermengarde

On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin's side, aware that
the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had
noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her
very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat
child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had
a good-naturedly pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight
pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail around her
neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the
desk, as she stared wonderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur
Dufarge began to speak to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and
when Sara stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent,
appealing eyes, answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat
little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed
amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to
remember that "la mere" meant "the mother," and "le pere," "the
father,"--when one spoke sensible English--it was almost too much for
her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who
seemed not only quite familiar with these words,