“If you’ll do that,” she said, “and if you’ll make me remember, I’ll give you—I’ll give you some money.”
“I don’t want your money,” said Sara. “I want your books—I want them.” And her eyes grew big and queer, and her chest heaved once.
“Take them, then,” said Ermengarde; “I wish I wanted them, but I am not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be.”
Sara picked up the books and marched off with them. But when she was at the door, she stopped and turned around.
“What are you going to tell your father?” she asked.
“Oh,” said Ermengarde, “he needn’t know; he’ll think I’ve read them.”
Sara looked down at the books; her heart really began to beat fast.
“I won’t do it,” she said rather slowly, “if you are going to tell him lies about it—I don’t like lies. Why can’t you tell him I read them and then told you about them?”
“But he wants me to read them,” said Ermengarde.
“He wants you to know what is in them,” said Sara; and if I can tell it to you in an easy way and make you remember, I should think he would like that.”
“He would like it better if I read them myself,” replied Ermengarde.
“He will like it, I dare say, if you learn anything in any way,” said Sara. “I should, if I were your father.”
And though this was not a flattering way of stating the case, Ermengarde was obliged to admit it was true, and, after a little more argument, gave in. And so she used afterward always to hand over her books to Sara, and Sara would carry them to her garret and devour them; and after she had read each volume, she would return it and tell Ermengarde about it in a way of her own. She had a gift for making things interesting. Her imagination helped her to make everything rather like a story, and she managed this matter so well that Miss St. John gained more information from her books than she would have gained if she had read them three times over by her poor stupid little self. When Sara sat down by her and began to tell some story of travel or history, she made the travellers and historical people seem real; and Ermengarde used to sit and regard her dramatic gesticulations, her thin little flushed cheeks, and her shining, odd eyes with amazement.
“It sounds nicer than it seems in the book,” she would say. “I never cared about Mary, Queen of Scots, before, and I always hated the French Revolution, but you make it seem like a story.”
“It is a story,” Sara would answer. “They are all stories. Everything is a story—everything in this world. You are a story—I am a story—Miss Minchin is a story. You can make a story out of anything.”
“I can’t,” said Ermengarde.
Sara stared at her a minute reflectively.
“No,” she said at last. “I suppose you couldn’t. You are a little like Emily.”
“Who is Emily?”
Sara recollected herself. She knew she was sometimes rather impolite in the candor of her remarks, and she did not want to be impolite to a girl who was not unkind—only stupid. Notwithstanding all her sharp little ways she had the sense to wish to be just to everybody. In the hours she spent alone, she used to argue out a great many curious questions with herself. One thing she had decided upon was, that a person who was clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to any one. Miss Minchin was unjust and cruel, Miss Amelia was unkind and spiteful, the cook was malicious and hasty-tempered—they all were stupid, and made her despise them, and she desired to be as unlike them as possible. So she would be as polite as she could to people who in the least deserved politeness.
“Emily is—a person—I know,” she replied.
“Do you like her?” asked Ermengarde.
“Yes, I do,” said Sara.
Ermengarde examined her queer little face and figure again. She did look odd. She had on, that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely covered her knees, a brown Cloth sacque, and a pair of olive-green stockings which Miss Minchin had made her piece out with black ones, so that they would be long enough to be kept on. And yet Ermengarde was beginning slowly to admire her. Such a forlorn, thin, neglected little thing as that, who could read and read and remember and tell you things so that they did not tire you all out! A child who could speak French, and who had learned German, no one knew how! One could not help staring at her and feeling interested, particularly one to whom the simplest lesson was a trouble and a woe.
“Do you like me?” said Ermengarde, finally, at the end of her scrutiny.
Sara hesitated one second, then she answered:
“I like you because you are not ill-natured—I like you for letting me read your books—I like you because you don’t make spiteful fun of me for what I can’t help. It’s not your fault that—”
She pulled herself up quickly. She had been going to say, “that you are stupid.”
“That what?” asked Ermengarde.
“That you can’t learn things quickly. If you can’t, you can’t. If I can, why, I can—that’s all.” She paused a minute, looking at the plump face before her, and then, rather slowly, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her.
“Perhaps,” she said, “to be able to learn things quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a good deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew everything on earth, which she doesn’t, and if she was like what she is now, she’d still be a detestable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and been wicked. Look at Robespierre—”
She stopped again and examined her companion’s countenance.
