er. In a very short time she began to look less thin. Color came
into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem so much too big for her face.

"Sara Crewe looks wonderfully well," Miss Minchin remarked
disapprovingly to her sister.

"Yes," answered poor, silly Miss Amelia. "She is absolutely fattening.
She was beginning to look like a little starved crow."

"Starved!" exclaimed Miss Minchin, angrily. "There was no reason why
she should look starved. She always had plenty to eat!"

"Of--of course," agreed Miss Amelia, humbly, alarmed to find that she
had, as usual, said the wrong thing.

"There is something very disagreeable in seeing that sort of thing in a
child of her age," said Miss Minchin, with haughty vagueness.

"What--sort of thing?" Miss Amelia ventured.

"It might almost be called defiance," answered Miss Minchin, feeling
annoyed because she knew the thing she resented was nothing like
defiance, and she did not know what other unpleasant term to use. "The
spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and
broken by--by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word,
she seems as little subdued as if--as if she were a princess."

"Do you remember," put in the unwise Miss Amelia, "what she said to you
that day in the schoolroom about what you would do if you found out
that she was--"

"No, I don't," said Miss Minchin. "Don't talk nonsense." But she
remembered very clearly indeed.

Very naturally, even Becky was beginning to look plumper and less
frightened. She could not help it. She had her share in the secret
fairy story, too. She had two mattresses, two pillows, plenty of
bed-covering, and every night a hot supper and a seat on the cushions
by the fire. The Bastille had melted away, the prisoners no longer
existed. Two comforted children sat in the midst of delights.
Sometimes Sara read aloud from her books, sometimes she learned her own
lessons, sometimes she sat and looked into the fire and tried to
imagine who her friend could be, and wished she could say to him some
of the things in her heart.

Then it came about that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to
the door and left several parcels. All were addressed in large
letters, "To the Little Girl in the right-hand attic."

Sara herself was sent to open the door and take them in. She laid the
two largest parcels on the hall table, and was looking at the address,
when Miss Minchin came down the s