rival, she had felt herself the leader in the
school. She had led because she was capable of making herself
extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered
over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough
to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the
best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked
out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared,
combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin
at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter
enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader,
too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because
she never did.

"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best
friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the
least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't
help being--just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made
such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off
when parents come."

"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave
about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation
of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her
accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at
any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says
herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she
always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing
so grand in being an Indian officer."

"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers. He killed the one in
the skin Sara has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on
it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat."

"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia. "My mamma says
that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow
up eccentric."

It was quite true that Sara was never "grand." She was a friendly
little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand.
The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out
of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry
by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and
when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them
up and patted them, or fou