s Minchin had expected to see in Sara, when she appeared in the
schoolroom, very much what Lavinia had expected to see. Sara had always
been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or
look frightened. When she was scolded she stood still and listened
politely with a grave face; when she was punished she performed her
extra tasks or went without her meals, making no complaint or outward
sign of rebellion. The very fact that she never made an impudent
answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impudence in itself. But after
yesterday's deprivation of meals, the violent scene of last night, the
prospect of hunger today, she must surely have broken down. It would
be strange indeed if she did not come downstairs with pale cheeks and
red eyes and an unhappy, humbled face.

Miss Minchin saw her for the first time when she entered the schoolroom
to hear the little French class recite its lessons and superintend its
exercises. And she came in with a springing step, color in her cheeks,
and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. It was the most
astonishing thing Miss Minchin had ever known. It gave her quite a
shock. What was the child made of? What could such a thing mean? She
called her at once to her desk.

"You do not look as if you realize that you are in disgrace," she said.
"Are you absolutely hardened?"

The truth is that when one is still a child--or even if one is grown
up--and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when
one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to
find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and
one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes. Miss
Minchin was almost struck dumb by the look of Sara's eyes when she made
her perfectly respectful answer.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin," she said; "I know that I am in
disgrace."

"Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a
fortune. It is an impertinence. And remember you are to have no food
today."

"Yes, Miss Minchin," Sara answered; but as she turned away her heart
leaped with the memory of what yesterday had been. "If the Magic had
not saved me just in time," she thought, "how horrible it would have
been!"

"She can't be very hungry," whispered Lavinia. "Just look at her.
Perhaps she is pretending she has had a good breakfast"--with a
spiteful laugh.

"She's different from other people," said