whitewashed; there was a rusty grate, an iron bedstead, and some odd
articles of furniture, sent up from better rooms below, where they had
been used until they were considered to be worn out. Under the skylight
in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky,
there was a battered old red footstool.

Sara went to it and sat down. She was a queer child, as I have said
before, and quite unlike other children. She seldom cried. She did not
cry now. She laid her doll, Emily, across her knees, and put her face
down upon her, and her arms around her, and sat there, her little black
head resting on the black crape, not saying one word, not making one
sound.


From that day her life changed entirely. Sometimes she used to feel as
if it must be another life altogether, the life of some other child. She
was a little drudge and outcast; she was given her lessons at odd times
and expected to learn without being taught; she was sent on errands by
Miss Minchin, Miss Amelia and the cook. Nobody took any notice of her
except when they ordered her about. She was often kept busy all day and
then sent into the deserted school-room with a pile of books to learn
her lessons or practise at night. She had never been intimate with
the other pupils, and soon she became so shabby that, taking her queer
clothes together with her queer little ways, they began to look upon
her as a being of another world than their own. The fact was that, as
a rule, Miss Minchin's pupils were rather dull, matter-of-fact young
people, accustomed to being rich and comfortable; and Sara, with her
elfish cleverness, her desolate life, and her odd habit of fixing her
eyes upon them and staring them out of countenance, was too much for
them.