Sara Crewe | Page 3

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SARA CREWE OR WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S
BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large,
dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were alike,
and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers made
the same heavy sound, and on still days--and nearly all the days were
still-- seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock was
knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the brass
plate there was inscribed in black letters,
MISS MINCHIN'S SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES
Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading
that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she
had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was
not "Select," and in the second she was not a "Young Lady." When she
was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a pupil,
and left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from India. Her
mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her with
him as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was making
her very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her with Miss

Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara,
who had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things,
recollected hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world
whom he knew of, and so he was obliged to place her at a
boarding-school, and he had heard Miss Minchin's establishment
spoken of very highly. The same day, he took Sara out and bought her a
great many beautiful clothes-- clothes so grand and rich that only a very
young and inexperienced man would have bought them for a mite of a
child who was to be brought up in a boarding-school. But the fact was
that he was a rash, innocent young man, and very sad at the thought of
parting with his little girl, who was all he had left to remind him of her
beautiful mother, whom he had dearly loved. And he wished her to
have everything the most fortunate little girl could have; and so, when
the polite saleswomen in the shops said, "Here is our very latest thing
in hats, the plumes are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady Diana
Sinclair yesterday," he immediately bought what was offered to him,
and paid whatever was asked. The consequence was that Sara had a
most extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were silk and velvet and
India cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and
plumes, her small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she
returned in the cab to Miss Minchin's with a doll almost as large as
herself, dressed quite as grandly as herself, too.
Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some money and went away, and for
several days Sara would neither touch the doll, nor her breakfast, nor
her dinner, nor her tea, and would do nothing but crouch in a small
corner by the window and cry. She cried so much, indeed, that she
made herself ill. She was a queer little child, with old-fashioned ways
and strong feelings, and she had adored her papa, and could not be
made to think that India and an interesting bungalow were not better for
her than London and Miss Minchin's Select Seminary. The instant she
had entered the house, she had begun promptly to hate Miss Minchin,
and to think little of Miss Amelia Minchin, who was smooth and
dumpy, and lisped, and was evidently afraid of her older sister. Miss
Minchin was tall, and had large, cold, fishy eyes, and large, cold hands,
which seemed fishy, too, because they were damp and made chills run
down Sara's back when they touched her, as Miss Minchin pushed her

hair off her forehead and said:
"A most