第66章 "I Tried Not to Be"(4)

said Lavinia,eagerly."There has been such a row in Miss Minchin's room,Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics and has had to go to bed."

Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned.

"I have just had this letter from Sara,"she said,holding it out to let them see what a long letter it was.

"From Sara!"Every voice joined in that exclamation.

"Where is she?"almost shrieked Jessie.

"Next door,"said Ermengarde,"with the Indian gentleman."

"Where?Where?Has she been sent away?Does Miss Minchin know?

Was the row about that?Why did she write?Tell us!Tell us!"

There was a perfect babel,and Lottie began to cry plaintively.

Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half plunged out into what,at the moment,seemed the most important and self-explaining thing.

"There WERE diamond mines,"she said stoutly;"there WERE>!"

Open mouths and open eyes confronted her.

"They were real,"she hurried on."It was all a mistake about them.

Something happened for a time,and Mr.Carrisford thought they were ruined--"

"Who is Mr.Carrisford?"shouted Jessie.

"The Indian gentleman.And Captain Crewe thought so,too--and he died;

and Mr.Carrisford had brain fever and ran away,and HE almost died.

And he did not know where Sara was.And it turned out that there were millions and millions of diamonds in the mines;and half of them belong to Sara;and they belonged to her when she was living in the attic with no one but Melchisedec for a friend,and the cook ordering her about.And Mr.Carrisford found her this afternoon,and he has got her in his home--and she will never come back--and she will be more a princess than she ever was--a hundred and fifty thousand times more.And I am going to see her tomorrow afternoon.There!"

Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar after this;and though she heard the noise,she did not try.

She was not in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room,while Miss Amelia was weeping in bed.She knew that the news had penetrated the walls in some mysterious manner,and that every servant and every child would go to bed talking about it.

So until almost midnight the entire seminary,realizing somehow that all rules were laid aside,crowded round Ermengarde in the schoolroom and heard read and re-read the letter containing a story which was quite as wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented,and which had the amazing charm of having happened to Sara herself and the mystic Indian gentleman in the very next house.

Becky,who had heard it also,managed to creep up stairs earlier than usual.She wanted to get away from people and go and look at the little magic room once more.She did not know what would happen to it.It was not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin.

It would be taken away,and the attic would be bare and empty again.

Glad as she was for Sara's sake,she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump in her throat and tears blurring her sight.

There would be no fire tonight,and no rosy lamp;no supper,and no princess sitting in the glow reading or telling stories--no princess!

She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open,and then she broke into a low cry.

The lamp was flushing the room,the fire was blazing,the supper was waiting;and Ram Dass was standing smiling into her startled face.

"Missee sahib remembered,"he said."She told the sahib all.

She wished you to know the good fortune which has befallen her.

Behold a letter on the tray.She has written.She did not wish that you should go to sleep unhappy.The sahib commands you to come to him tomorrow.You are to be the attendant of missee sahib.

Tonight I take these things back over the roof."

And having said this with a beaming face,he made a little salaam and slipped through the skylight with an agile silentness of movement which showed Becky how easily he had done it before.