The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sara Crewe, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Sara Crewe

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #137]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARA CREWE ***

Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

SARA CREWE

OR

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S

BY

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large,
dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were
alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers
made the same heavy sound, and on still days--and nearly all the days
were still--seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock
was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the
brass plate there was inscribed in black letters,

MISS MINCHIN'S

SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES

Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading that
door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she had
decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was
not "Select," and in the second she was not a "Young Lady." When she was
eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a pupil, and
left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from India. Her
mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her with him
as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was making her
very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her with Miss
Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara, who
had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things, recollected
hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world whom he knew
of, and so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school, and he had
heard Miss Minchin's establishment spoken of very highly. The same day,
he took Sara out and bought her a great many beautiful clothes--clothes
so grand and rich that only a very young and inexperienced man would
have bought them for a mite of a child who was to be brought up in a
boarding-school. But the