began rather to like her and want to be her friend. It was a way
of hers always to want to spring into any fray in which someone
was made uncomfortable or unhappy.

"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago," her
father used to say, "she would have gone about the country with
her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress.
She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble."

So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John,
and kept glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that
lessons were no easy matter to her, and that there was no danger
of her ever being spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her
French lesson was a pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even
Monsieur Dufarge smile in spite of himself, and Lavinia and
Jessie and the more fortunate girls either giggled or looked at
her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not laugh. She tried to
look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John called "le bon
pain," "lee bong pang." She had a fine, hot little temper of her
own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard the
titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face.

"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she
bent over her book. "They ought not to laugh."

When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in
groups to talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her
bundled rather disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over
to her and spoke. She only said the kind of thing little girls
always say to each other by way of beginning an acquaintance, but