There—! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you! I will!”

Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and excitedly.

“Miss Amelia,” she said in a low voice, “Miss Minchin says I may try to make her stop—may I?”

Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. “Oh, DO you think you can?” she gasped.

“I don’t know whether I CAN”,


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been a boy and lived a few centuries ago,” her father used to say, “she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble.”

So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John, and


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