these delights were going on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her throat ominously and spoke again.
“Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you,” she announced.
“She’s going to make a speech,” whispered one of the girls. “I wish it was over.”
Sara felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was probable that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a schoolroom and have a speech made about you.
“You are aware, young ladies,” the speech began—for
with excitement, and would lay her hand on her thin, little, quick-rising chest, and half laugh as if at herself.
“When I am telling it,” she would say, “it doesn’t seem as if it was only made up. It seems more real than you are—more real than the schoolroom. I feel as if I were all the people in the