n the schoolroom door opened and Sara
walked in, the entire seminary was struck dumb.

"My word!" ejaculated Jessie, jogging Lavinia's elbow. "Look at the
Princess Sara!"

Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia looked she turned quite red.

It was the Princess Sara indeed. At least, since the days when she had
been a princess, Sara had never looked as she did now. She did not
seem the Sara they had seen come down the back stairs a few hours ago.
She was dressed in the kind of frock Lavinia had been used to envying
her the possession of. It was deep and warm in color, and beautifully
made. Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jessie had admired
them, and the hair, whose heavy locks had made her look rather like a
Shetland pony when it fell loose about her small, odd face, was tied
back with a ribbon.

"Perhaps someone has left her a fortune," Jessie whispered. "I always
thought something would happen to her. She's so queer."

"Perhaps the diamond mines have suddenly appeared again," said Lavinia,
scathingly. "Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly
thing."

"Sara," broke in Miss Minchin's deep voice, "come and sit here."

And while the whole schoolroom stared and pushed with elbows, and
scarcely made any effort to conceal its excited curiosity, Sara went to
her old seat of honor, and bent her head over her books.

That night, when she went to her room, after she and Becky had eaten
their supper she sat and looked at the fire seriously for a long time.

"Are you making something up in your head, miss?" Becky inquired with
respectful softness. When Sara sat in silence and looked into the
coals with dreaming eyes it generally meant that she was making a new
story. But this time she was not, and she shook her head.

"No," she answered. "I am wondering what I ought to do."

Becky stared--still respectfully. She was filled with something
approaching reverence for everything Sara did and said.

"I can't help thinking about my friend," Sara explained. "If he wants
to keep himself a secret, it would be rude to try and find out who he
is. But I do so want him to know how thankful I am to him--and how
happy he has made me. Anyone who is kind wants to know when people
have been made happy. They care for that more than for being thanked.
I wish--I do wish--"

She stopped short because her eyes at that instant fell upon something
standing on a table in a corner. It was someth