but apparently knew
any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were
mere trifles.

She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she
attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross
at the moment, immediately pounced upon her.

"Miss St. John!" she exclaimed severely. "What do you mean by such
conduct? Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit
up at once!"

Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie
tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost
looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes; and
Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her
and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to
spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy.

"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago," her father used
to say, "she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn,
rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight
when she sees people in trouble."

So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John, and kept
glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no
easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being
spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her French lesson was a
pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even Monsieur Dufarge smile in
spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jessie and the more fortunate girls
either giggled or looked at her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not
laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John
called "le bon pain," "lee bong pang." She had a fine, hot little
temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard
the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face.

"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she bent over
her book. "They ought not to laugh."

When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups to
talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather
disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over to her and spoke. She
only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by
way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something friendly
about Sara, and people always felt it.

"What is your name?" she said.

To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must reca