A Little Princess | Page 6

Meredith's
two little girls had been educated there, and Captain Crewe had a great
respect for Lady Meredith's experience. Sara was to be what was
known as "a parlor boarder," and she was to enjoy even greater

privileges than parlor boarders usually did. She was to have a pretty
bedroom and sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a
carriage, and a maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her
nurse in India.
"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe said,
with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. "The difficulty
will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always
sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them,
Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead
of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she
wants grown-up books--great, big, fat ones--French and German as
well as English--history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things.
Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Make her ride
her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. She ought to play
more with dolls."
"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every
few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be
intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend."
Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at
Captain Crewe.
"Who is Emily?" she inquired.
"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling.
Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she
answered.
"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said. "She is a doll papa is going to
buy for me. We are going out together to find her. I have called her
Emily. She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I want her to
talk to about him."
Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed.

"What an original child!" she said. "What a darling little creature!"
"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. "She is a darling little
creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin."
Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact, she
remained with him until he sailed away again to India. They went out
and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things.
They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed; but
Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little
girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself,
so between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child
of seven. There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace
dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich feathers,
and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and
handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the
polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that
the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some
foreign princess--perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah.
And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops
and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her.
"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. "I want her
to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. The trouble with dolls,
papa"--and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said
it--"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to HEAR." So they
looked at big ones and little ones-- at dolls with black eyes and dolls
with blue--at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls
dressed and dolls undressed.
"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no
clothes. "If, when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take her to a
dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if they
are tried on."
After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at
the shop windows and let the cab follow them. They had passed two or

three places without even going in, when, as they were approaching a
shop which was really not a very large one, Sara suddenly started and
clutched her father's arm.
"Oh, papa!" she cried. "There is Emily!"
A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her
green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone