Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too bad a humor to give her anything to eat with it. She had just been scolded by Miss Minchin, and it was always safe and easy to vent her own spite on Sara.
Really it was hard for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her garret. She often found them long and steep when she was tired, but to-night it seemed as if she would never reach the top. Several times a lump rose in her throat and she was obliged to stop to rest.
“I can’t pretend anything more to-night,” she said wearily to herself. “I’m sure I can’t. I’ll eat my bread and drink some water and then go to sleep, and perhaps a dream will come and pretend for me. I wonder what dreams are.”
Yes, when she reached the top landing there were tears in her eyes, and she did not feel like a princess—only like a tired, hungry, lonely, lonely child.
“If my papa had lived,” she said, “they would not have treated me like this. If my papa had lived, he would have taken care of me.”
Then she turned the handle and opened the garret-door.
Can you imagine it—can you believe it? I find it hard to believe it myself. And Sara found it impossible; for the first few moments she thought something strange had happened to her eyes—to her mind—that the dream had come before she had had time to fall asleep.
“Oh!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Oh! it isn’t true! I know, I know it isn’t true!” And she slipped into the room and closed the door and locked it, and stood with her back against it, staring straight before her.
Do you wonder? In the grate, which had been empty and rusty and cold when she left it, but which now was blackened and polished up quite respectably, there was a glowing, blazing fire. On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and boiling; spread upon the floor was a warm, thick rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, unfolded and with cushions on it; by the chair was a small folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it were spread small covered dishes, a cup and saucer, and a tea-pot; on the bed were new, warm coverings, a curious wadded silk robe, and some books. The little, cold, miserable room seemed changed into Fairyland. It was actually warm and glowing.
“It is bewitched!” said Sara. “Or I am bewitched. I only think I see it all; but if I can only keep on thinking it, I don’t care—I don’t care— if I can only keep it up!”
She was afraid to move, for fear it would melt away. She stood with her back against the door and looked and looked. But soon she began to feel warm, and then she moved forward.
“A fire that I only thought I saw surely wouldn’t feel warm,” she said. “It feels real—real.”
She went to it and knelt before it. She touched the chair, the table; she lifted the cover of one of the dishes. There was something hot and savory in it—something delicious. The tea-pot had tea in it, ready for the boiling water from the little kettle; one plate had toast on it, another, muffins.
“It is real,” said Sara. “The fire is real enough to warm me; I can sit in the chair; the things are real enough to eat.”
It was like a fairy story come true—it was heavenly. She went to the bed and touched the blankets and the wrap. They were real too. She opened one book, and on the title-page was written in a strange hand, “The little girl in the attic.”
Suddenly—was it a strange thing for her to do? —Sara put her face down on the queer, foreign looking quilted robe and burst into tears.
“I don’t know who it is,” she said, “but somebody cares about me a little—somebody is my friend.”
Somehow that thought warmed her more than the fire. She had never had a friend since those happy, luxurious days when she had had everything; and those days had seemed such a long way off—so far away as to be only like dreams—during these last years at Miss Minchin’s.
She really cried more at this strange thought of having a friend—even though an unknown one— than she had cried over many of her worst troubles.
But these tears seemed different from the others, for when she had wiped them away they did not seem to leave her eyes and her heart hot and smarting.
And then imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. The delicious comfort of taking off the damp clothes and putting on the soft, warm, quilted robe before the glowing fire— of slipping her cold feet into the luscious little wool-lined slippers she found near her chair. And then the hot tea and savory dishes, the cushioned chair and the books!
It was just like Sara, that, once having found the things real, she should give herself up to the enjoyment of them to the very utmost. She had lived such a life of imagining, and had found her pleasure so long in improbabilities, that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing that happened. After she was quite warm and had eaten her supper and enjoyed herself for an hour or so, it had almost ceased to be surprising to her that such magical surroundings should be hers. As to finding out who had done all this, she knew that it was out of the question. She did not know a human soul by whom it could seem in the least degree probable that it could have been done.
“There is nobody,” she said to herself, “nobody.” She discussed the matter with Emily, it is true, but more because it was delightful to talk about it than with a view to making any discoveries.
“But we have a friend, Emily,” she said; “we have a friend.”
Sara could not even imagine a being charming enough to fill her grand ideal of her mysterious benefactor. If she tried to make in her mind a picture of him or her, it ended by being something glittering and strange—not at all like a real person, but bearing resemblance to a sort of Eastern magician, with long robes and a wand. And when she fell asleep, beneath the soft white blanket, she dreamed all night of this magnificent personage, and talked to him in Hindustani, and made salaams to him.
Upon one thing she was determined. She would not speak to any one of her good fortune—it should be her own secret; in fact, she was rather inclined to think that if Miss Minchin knew, she would take her treasures from her or in some way spoil her pleasure. So, when she went down the next morning, she shut her door very tight and did her best to look as if nothing unusual had occurred. And yet this was rather hard, because she could not help remembering, every now and then, with a sort of start, and her heart would beat quickly every time she repeated to
