lves. At this hour a great deal of talking was
done, and a great many secrets changed hands, particularly if the
younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run
about noisily, which it must be confessed they usually did. When they
made an uproar the older girls usually interfered with scolding and
shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if
they did not, Miss Minchin or Miss Amelia would appear and put an end
to festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke the door opened and Sara entered
with Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little
dog.

"There she is, with that horrid child!" exclaimed Lavinia in a whisper.
"If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she keep her in her own room? She
will begin howling about something in five minutes."

It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in
the schoolroom, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She
joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled
herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It
was a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a
harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille--men who had spent
so many years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who
rescued them, their long, gray hair and beards almost hid their faces,
and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were
like beings in a dream.

She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be
dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find
anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when
she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are
fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at
such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one
not easy to manage.

"It makes me feel as if someone had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde
once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember
things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered."

She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the
window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner.

Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having first
irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended by falling
down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and
down in the mids