"Dun'no. Never got nothin' to-day--nowhere. I've axed and axed."

Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer
little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to
herself though she was sick at heart.

"If I'm a princess," she was saying--"if I'm a princess--! When they
were poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the
Populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier. They always shared. Buns
are a penny each. If it had been sixpence! I could have eaten six. It
won't be enough for either of us--but it will be better than nothing."

"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar-child. She went into the shop.
It was warm and smelled delightfully. The woman was just going to put
more hot buns in the window.

"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver
fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her.

The woman looked at it and at her--at her intense little face and
draggled, once-fine clothes.

"Bless us--no," she answered. "Did you find it?"

"In the gutter," said Sara.

"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there a week, and
goodness knows who lost it. You could never find out."