there was something friendly about Sara, and people always felt
it.

"What is your name?" she said.

To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must recall that a new
pupil is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of
this new pupil the entire school had talked the night before
until it fell asleep quite exhausted by excitement and
contradictory stories. A new pupil with a carriage and a pony
and a maid, and a voyage from India to discuss, was not an
ordinary acquaintance.

"My name's Ermengarde St. John," she answered.

"Mine is Sara Crewe," said Sara. "Yours is very pretty. It
sounds like a story book."

"Do you like it?" fluttered Ermengarde. "I--I like yours."

Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever
father. Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If
you have a father who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight
languages, and has thousands of volumes which he has apparently
learned by heart, he frequently expects you to be familiar with
the contents of your lesson books at least; and it is not
improbable that he will feel you ought to be able to remember a
few incidents of history and to write a French exercise.
Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. He could not
understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably