cap. She felt it dangling over her ear, and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh, she had got herself into trouble now with a vengeance! To have impudently fallen asleep on such a young lady’s chair! She would be turned out of doors without wages.

She made a sound like a big breathless sob.

“Oh, miss! Oh, miss!” she stuttered. “I arst yer pardon, miss! Oh, I do, miss!”

Sara jumped down, and came quite close to her.

“Don’t be frightened,” she said, quite as if she had been speaking to a little


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with your French lessons.”


4

Lottie

If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished guest at the establishment than as if she were a


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