Read Online A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Free Book Online

or walked out, she used to look into shop windows
eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home two or
three little meat pies, she felt that she had hit upon a
discovery. When she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled.
    "Oh, miss!" she murmured. "Them will be nice an' fillin.' It's
fillin'ness that's best. Sponge cake's a 'evenly thing, but it
melts away like—if you understand, miss. These'll just STAY in
yer stummick."
    "Well," hesitated Sara, "I don't think it would be good if they
stayed always, but I do believe they will be satisfying."
    They were satisfying—and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a
cook-shop—and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky
began to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not
seem so unbearably heavy.
    However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and
the hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had
always the chance of the afternoon to look forward to—the
chance that Miss Sara would be able to be in her sitting room.
In fact, the mere seeing of Miss Sara would have been enough
without meat pies. If there was time only for a few words, they
were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one; and if
there was time for more, then there was an installment of a story
to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterward and
sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think over.
Sara—who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than
anything else, Nature having made her for a giver—had not the
least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a
benefactor she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your
hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may
be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full,
and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things,
sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay,
kind laughter is the best help of all.
    Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor,
little hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with
her; and, though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was
as "fillin'" as the meat pies.
    A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her
from her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish
high spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently
overweighted by the business connected with the diamond mines.
    "You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a
businessman at all, and figures and documents bother him. He
does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous.
Perhaps, if I was not feverish I should not be awake, tossing
about, one half of the night and spend the other half in
troublesome dreams. If my little missus were here, I dare say
she would give me some solemn, good advice. You would, wouldn't
you, Little Missus?"
    One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus"
because she had such an old-fashioned air.
    He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among
other things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her
wardrobe was to be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection.
When she had replied to the letter asking her if the doll would
be an acceptable present, Sara had been very quaint.
    "I am getting very old," she wrote; "you see, I shall never live
to have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There
is something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure
a poem about 'A Last Doll' would be very nice. But I cannot
write poetry. I have tried, and it made me laugh. It did not
sound like Watts or Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one
could ever take Emily's place, but I should respect the Last Doll
very much; and I am sure the school would love it. They all like
dolls, though some of the big ones—the almost fifteen ones—
pretend they are too grown up."
    Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter
in his bungalow in India.