"Open them!" she demanded, still more excitedly.

Sara did as she was told. They contained pretty and comfortable
clothing,--clothing of different kinds; shoes and stockings and gloves,
a warm coat, and even an umbrella. On the pocket of the coat was pinned
a paper on which was written, "To be worn every day--will be replaced by
others when necessary."

Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an incident which suggested
strange things to her sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a
mistake after all, and that the child so neglected and so unkindly
treated by her had some powerful friend in the background? It would not
be very pleasant if there should be such a friend, and he or she should
learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, the scant food,
the hard work. She felt queer indeed and uncertain, and she gave a
side-glance at Sara.

"Well," she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the day
the child lost her father--"well, some one is very kind to you. As you
have the things and are to have new ones when they are worn out, you
may as well go and put them on and look respectable; and after you
are dressed, you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the
school-room."

So it happened that, about half an hour afterward, Sara struck the
entire school-room of pupils dumb with amazement, by making her
appearance in a costume such as she had never worn since the change of
fortune whereby she ceased to be a show-pupil and a parlor-boarder. She
scarcely seemed to be the same Sara. She was neatly dressed in a pretty