"Oh, Sara," Ermengarde almost wailed in her reproachful dismay. And
then after one more look they rushed into each other's arms. It must
be confessed that Sara's small black head lay for some minutes on the
shoulder covered by the red shawl. When Ermengarde had seemed to
desert her, she had felt horribly lonely.

Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sara clasping her
knees with her arms, and Ermengarde rolled up in her shawl. Ermengarde
looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly.

"I couldn't bear it any more," she said. "I dare say you could live
without me, Sara; but I couldn't live without you. I was nearly DEAD.
So tonight, when I was crying under the bedclothes, I thought all at
once of creeping up here and just begging you to let us be friends
again."

"You are nicer than I am," said Sara. "I was too proud to try and make
friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am
NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps"--wrinkling her
forehead wisely--"that is what they were sent for."

"I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly.

"Neither do I--to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly. "But I
suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it. There
MIGHT"--DOUBTFULLY--"Be good in Miss Minchin."

Ermengarde looked round the attic with a rather fearsome curiosity.

"Sara," she said, "do you think you can bear living here?"

Sara looked round also.

"If I pretend it's quite different, I can," she answered; "or if I
pretend it is a place in a story."

She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for her. It
had not worked for her at all since her troubles had come upon her. She
had felt as if it had been stunned.

"Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of Monte
Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. And think of the people in
the Bastille!"

"The Bastille," half whispered Ermengarde, watching her and beginning
to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French Revolution
which Sara had been able to fix in her mind by her dramatic relation of
them. No one but Sara could have done it.

A well-known glow came into Sara's eyes.

"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, "that will be a good place to
pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been here for
years and years--and years; and everybody has forgotten about me. Miss
Minchin is the jailer--and Becky"--a sudde