motherly blue eyes grew quite moist, and she suddenly took Sara in her
arms and kissed her. That very night, before she went to sleep, Sara had
made the acquaintance of the entire Large Family, and such excitement
as she and the monkey had caused in that joyous circle could hardly be
described. There was not a child in the nursery, from the Eton boy who
was the eldest, to the baby who was the youngest, who had not laid
some offering on her shrine. All the older ones knew something of her
wonderful story. She had been born in India; she had been poor and
lonely and unhappy, and had lived in a garret and been treated unkindly;
and now she was to be rich and happy, and be taken care of. They were so
sorry for her, and so delighted and curious about her, all at once. The
girls wished to be with her constantly, and the little boys wished to be
told about India; the second baby, with the short round legs, simply
sat and stared at her and the monkey, possibly wondering why she had not
brought a hand-organ with her.

"I shall certainly wake up presently," Sara kept saying to herself.
"This one must be a dream. The other one turned out to be real; but this
couldn't be. But, oh! how happy it is!"

And even when she went to bed, in the bright, pretty room not far from
Mrs. Carmichael's own, and Mrs. Carmichael came and kissed her and
patted her and tucked her in cozily, she was not sure that she would not
wake up in the garret in the morning.

"And oh, Charles, dear," Mrs. Carmichael said to her husband, when she
went downstairs to him, "We must get that lonely look out of her eyes!
It isn't a child's look at all. I couldn't bear to see it in one of my
own children. What the poor little love must have had to bear in that
dreadful woman's house! But, surely, she will forget it in time."