cys, when she did
not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was
Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet Cholmondely
Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger, and who had such
round legs, was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian
Evangeline, Guy Clarence, Maud Marian, Rosalind Gladys, Veronica
Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector.

Next door to the Large Family lived the Maiden Lady, who had a
companion, and two parrots, and a King Charles spaniel; but Sara was not
so very fond of her, because she did nothing in particular but talk to
the parrots and drive out with the spaniel. The most interesting person
of all lived next door to Miss Minchin herself. Sara called him the
Indian Gentleman. He was an elderly gentleman who was said to have lived
in the East Indies, and to be immensely rich and to have something the
matter with his liver,--in fact, it had been rumored that he had no
liver at all, and was much inconvenienced by the fact. At any rate, he
was very yellow and he did not look happy; and when he went out to his
carriage, he was almost always wrapped up in shawls and overcoats, as if
he were cold. He had a native servant who looked even colder than
himself, and he had a monkey who looked colder than the native servant.
Sara had seen the monkey sitting on a table, in the sun, in the parlor
window, and he always wore such a mournful expression that she
sympathized with him deeply.

"I dare say," she used sometimes to remark to herself, "he is thinking
all the time of cocoanut trees and of swinging by his tail under a
tropical sun. He might have had a family dependent on him too, poor
thing!"

The native servant, whom she called the Lascar, looked mournful too, but
he was evidently very faithful to his master.

"Perhaps he saved his master's life in the Sepoy rebellion," she
thought. "They look as if they might have had all sorts of adventures. I
wish I could speak to the Lascar. I remember a little Hindustani."

And one day she actually did speak to him, and his start at the sound of
his own language expressed a great deal of surprise and delight. He was
waiting for his master to come out to the carriage, and Sara, who was
going on an errand as usual, stopped and spoke a few words. She had a
special gift for languages and had remembered enough Hindustani to make
herself understood by him. When his master came out, the Lascar spoke to
him qui