Sara to come to my room,” Miss Minchin had said to her sister. “And explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant scenes.”

“Sister,” replied Miss Amelia, “she is the strangest child I ever saw. She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her what had happened, she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale. When I had finished,


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not.”

The woeful fright in the coal-smutted face made her suddenly so sorry that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer thoughts rushed into her mind. She put her hand against Becky’s cheek.

“Why,” she said, “we are just the same—I am only a little girl like you. It’s just an accident that I


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