Sara recollected herself. She knew she was sometimes rather impolite in
the candor of her remarks, and she did not want to be impolite to a girl
who was not unkind--only stupid. Notwithstanding all her sharp little
ways she had the sense to wish to be just to everybody. In the hours she
spent alone, she used to argue out a great many curious questions with
herself. One thing she had decided upon was, that a person who was
clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind
to any one. Miss Minchin was unjust and cruel, Miss Amelia was unkind
and spiteful, the cook was malicious and hasty-tempered--they all were
stupid, and made her despise them, and she desired to be as unlike them
as possible. So she would be as polite as she could to people who in the
least deserved politeness.

"Emily is--a person--I know," she replied.

"Do you like her?" asked Ermengarde.

"Yes, I do," said Sara.

Ermengarde examined her queer little face and figure again. She did look
odd. She had on, that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely
covered her knees, a brown cloth sacque, and a pair of olive-green
stockings which Miss Minchin had made her piece out with black ones, so
that they would be long enough to be kept on. And yet Ermengarde was
beginning slowly to admire her. Such a forlorn, thin, neglected little
thing as that, who could read and read and remember and tell you things
so that they did not tire you all out! A child who could speak French,
and who had learned German, no one knew how! One could not help staring
at her and feeling interested, particularly one to whom the simplest
lesson was a trouble and a woe.

"Do you like _me_?" said Ermengarde, finally, at the end of her
scrutiny.

Sara hesitated one second, then she answered:

"I like you because you are not ill-natured--I like you for letting me
read your books--I like you because you don't make spiteful fun of me
for what I can't help. It's not your fault that----"

She pulled herself up quickly. She had been going to say, "that you are
stupid."

"That what?" asked Ermengarde.

"That you can't learn things quickly. If you can't, you can't. If I
can, why, I can--that's all." She paused a minute, looking at the plump
face before her, and then, rather slowly, one of her wise, old-fashioned
thoughts came to her.

"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't
everything. To be kind is worth a good deal to other people. If