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Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half plunged out into what, at the moment, seemed the most
important and self- explaining thing.
"There WERE diamond mines," she said stoutly; "there WERE!" Open mouths and open eyes confronted her.
"They were real," she hurried on. "It was all a mistake about them. Something happened for a time, and Mr.
Carrisford thought they were ruined--"
"Who is Mr. Carrisford?" shouted Jessie.
"The Indian gentleman. And Captain Crewe thought so, too--and he died; and Mr. Carrisford had brain fever
and ran away, and HE almost died. And he did not know where Sara was. And it turned out that there were
millions and millions of diamonds in the mines; and half of them belong to Sara; and they belonged to her
when she was living in the attic with no one but Melchisedec for a friend, and the cook ordering her about.
The Legal Small Print 115
And Mr. Carrisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his home--and she will never come
back--and she will be more a princess than she ever was--a hundred and fifty thousand times more. And I am
going to see her tomorrow afternoon. There!"
Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar after this; and though she heard the
noise, she did not try. She was not in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room, while
Miss Amelia was weeping in bed. She knew that the news had penetrated the walls in some mysterious
manner, and that every servant and every child would go to bed talking about it.
So until almost midnight the entire seminary, realizing somehow that all rules were laid aside, crowded round
Ermengarde in the schoolroom and heard read and re-read the letter containing a story which was quite as
wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented, and which had the amazing charm of having happened to
Sara herself and the mystic Indian gentleman in the very next house.
Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep up stairs earlier than usual. She wanted to get away from
people and go and look at the little magic room once more. She did not know what would happen to it. It was
not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin. It would be taken away, and the attic would be bare and
empty again. Glad as she was for Sara's sake, she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump in her throat and
tears blurring her sight. There would be no fire tonight, and no rosy lamp; no supper, and no princess sitting in
the glow reading or telling stories--no princess!
She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open, and then she broke into a low cry.
The lamp was flushing the room, the fire was blazing, the supper was waiting; and Ram Dass was standing
smiling into her startled face.
"Missee sahib remembered," he said. "She told the sahib all. She wished you to know the good fortune which
has befallen her. Behold a letter on the tray. She has written. She did not wish that you should go to sleep
unhappy. The sahib commands you to come to him tomorrow. You are to be the attendant of missee sahib.
Tonight I take these things back over the roof."
And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salaam and slipped through the skylight with an
agile silentness of movement which showed Becky how easily he had done it before.
19
Anne
Never had such joy reigned in the nursery of the Large Family. Never had they dreamed of such delights as
resulted from an intimate acquaintance with the little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. The mere fact of her
sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession. Everybody wanted to be told over and over again
the things which had happened to her. When one was sitting by a warm fire in a big, glowing room, it was
quite delightful to hear how cold it could be in an attic. It must be admitted that the attic was rather delighted
in, and that its coldness and bareness quite sank into insignificance when Melchisedec was remembered, and
one heard about the sparrows and things one could see if one climbed on the table and stuck one's head and
shoulders out of the skylight.
Of course the thing loved best was the story of the banquet and the dream which was true. Sara told it for the
first time the day after she had been found. Several members of the Large Family came to take tea with her,
and as they sat or curled up on the hearth-rug she told the story in her own way, and the Indian gentleman
listened and watched her. When she had finished she looked up at him and put her hand on his knee.
The Legal Small Print 116
"That is my part," she said. "Now won't you tell your part of it, Uncle Tom?" He had asked her to call him
always "Uncle Tom." "I don't know your part yet, and it must be beautiful."
So he told them how, when he sat alone, ill and dull and irritable, Ram Dass had tried to distract him by
describing the passers by, and there was one child who passed oftener than any one else; he had begun to be
interested in her--partly perhaps because he was thinking a great deal of a little girl, and partly because Ram
Dass had been able to relate the incident of his visit to the attic in chase of the monkey. He had described its
cheerless look, and the bearing of the child, who seemed as if she was not of the class of those who were
treated as drudges and servants. Bit by bit, Ram Dass had made discoveries concerning the wretchedness of
her life. He had found out how easy a matter it was to climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and
this fact had been the beginning of all that followed.
"Sahib," he had said one day, "I could cross the slates and make the child a fire when she is out on some
errand. When she returned, wet and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it."
The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Carrisford's sad face had lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been
so filled with rapture that he had enlarged upon it and explained to his master how simple it would be to
accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike pleasure and invention, and the preparations
for the carrying out of the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have dragged
wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had kept watch, all his packages being in readiness
in the attic which was his own; and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as interested as
himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when
the banquet had come to its disastrous conclusion; he had been sure of the profoundness of Sara's wearied
sleep; and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept into the room, while his companion remained outside and
handed the things to him. When Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had closed the lantern-slide and
lain flat upon the floor. These and many other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand
questions.
"I am so glad," Sara said. "I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!"
There never were such friends as these two became. Somehow, they seemed to suit each other in a wonderful
way. The Indian gentleman had never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sara. In a month's
time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a new man. He was always amused and
interested, and he began to find an actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he
loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for Sara. There was a little joke between
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