十一章小公主

Sara不仅没有责备Becky，还和她分享了美味的蛋糕，甚至承诺每天都可以讲故事给她听。Sara的善良让Becky打心底感到温暖。值得一提的是，Captain Crewe在信中提到要和友人一起开采钻石矿，这让Sara和其他女孩子都感到十分激动...

- A Little Princess -

Lessons for the day were over,and they were sitting before the classroom fire, enjoying the time they liked best.

At this hour a great deal of talking was done, and a great many secrets changed hands.

Even as Lavinia spoke, the door opened and Sara enrered with Lottie, whose habit was to follow everywhere after her like a little dog.

“There she is, with that awful child!" said Lavinia in a whisper.

“She will begin crying about something in five minutes."

Lottie joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner.

Sara sat up in the window seat. 

opened a book,and began to read.

It was a book about the French Revolution(法国大革命）.

She was soon lost in the story of the prisoners in the Bastille(巴士底狱)—men who had spent so many years locked up in jaill.

Lottie had been sliding(用行) across the classroom floor, and had ended by falling down and hurting her fat knee.

She was screaming and dancing up and down in the middle of a group of friends and enemies.

They were both trying to make her feel better and to get her to be quiet.

“Stop this minute, you crybaby(t突鬼)！Stop this minute!" Lavinia commanded.

"I'm not a crybaby... I'm not!"

said Lottie tearfully(泪汪汪地).“Sara, Sa—ral"

Sara flew across the room and, lowering herself,put her arms round her

“Come and sit in the window seat with me," Sara said, "and I'll whisper a story to you."

“Will you?" said Lottie through her tears.

“Will you—tell me—about the diamond mines?"

"The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia.

“Nasty(可恶的), litrle spoiled thing, I should like to hit her!"

Sara got up quickly on her feer.

She was not an angel, and she did not like Lavinia.

“Well," she said,with some fire,"T should like to hit you—but I won't hit you. We are both old enough to know better."

Here was Lavinia's opportunity.

“Ah,yes, your royal highness,"she said.

"We are princesses, I believe. At least one of us is."

Sara started toward her.

She looked as if she were going to box Lavinia's ears.

Perhaps she was.

Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life.

She never spoke of it to girls she disliked.

She felt the blood rush up into her face and ring in her ears.

She only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not show that you were angry.

Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment.

When she spoke, it was in a quiet voice; she held her head up, and everybody listened to her.

“It's true," she said.

"Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one."

“Dear me,"Lavinia said, "I hope, when you become a queen, you won't forget us!"

“I won't,” said Sara, and she looked at Lavinia firmly,until Lavinia took Jessie's arm and turned away  After this, the girls who were jealous of her called her “Princess Sara" whenever they wished to be unkind.

But those who were fond of her gave her the name as a term of love.

To Becky it seemed the most fitting thing in the world.

Their friendship had grown, though Miss Minchin and Miss

Amelia knew very little about it.

They were aware that Sara was “kind" to the scullery maid.

But they knew nothing of certain delightful moments when, after Becky was done cleaning the upstairs rooms, she would come to Sara's sitting room.

The heavy coal box was set down with a sigh of joy, and stories were told.

Food was either eaten or quickly put into pockets for later that night, when Becky went upstairs to her attic(园楼) to bed.

“But I must eat carefully, miss," she said once, "because if I leave crumbs(碎器),the rats come out to get them."

“Rats!"cried out Sara, in fear "Are there rats there?"

"Lots of them, miss," Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner.

“There are rats and mice in attics. You get used to the noise they make when they move about.”

"Ugh!" said Sara

“You get used to anything over time," said Becky.

"You have to, miss, if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats than cockroaches(舞娜).”

“So would 1," said Sara.

“I suppose you might make friends with a rat in time.

I don't believe I should like to make friends with a cockroach."

A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday, a letter came to her from

her father,which was not written in such high spirits as usual.

He was not very well, and was weighed down by the business of

the diamond mines.

"You see, little Sara," he wrote,

"your daddy is not a businessman at all, and figures trouble him.

He does not really understand them, and all this seems so huge.

I have been feverish, turning about in bed one half of the night and the other half spent in troublesome dreams.

If my little missus were here, I know she would give me some serious, good advice.

You would, wouldn't you, Little Missus?"

One of his many jokes had been to call her his “little missus" because she had such an old-fashioned air.