“Mr. Carrisford, madam,” he said, “was an intimate friend of the late Captain Crewe. He was his partner in certain large investments. The fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered, and is now in Mr. Carrisford’s hands.”
“The fortune!” cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she uttered the exclamation. “Sara’s fortune!”
“It will be Sara’s fortune,” replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly. “It is Sara’s fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it enormously. The diamond-mines have retrieved themselves.”
“The diamond-mines!” Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, nothing so horrible, she felt, had ever happened to her since she was born.
“The diamond-mines,” Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile: “There are not many princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity pupil, Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her for nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her.”
After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained matters to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to make it quite clear to her that Sara’s future was an assured one, and that what had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold; also, that she had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend.
Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was silly enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not help seeing she had lost through her own worldly folly.
“He found her under my care,” she protested. “I have done everything for her. But for me she would have starved in the streets.”
Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper.
“As to starving in the streets,” he said, “she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic.”
“Captain Crewe left her in my charge,” Miss Minchin argued. “She must return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor-boarder again. She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf.”
“Come, come, Miss Minchin,” Mr. Carmichael interposed, “the law will do nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with Sara.”
“Then,” said Miss Minchin, “I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you, perhaps,” she said awkwardly to the little girl; “but you know that your papa was pleased with your progress. And—ahem!—I have always been fond of you.”
Sara’s green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear look Miss Minchin particularly disliked.
“Have you, Miss Minchin?” she said; “I did not know that.”
Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up.
“You ought to have known it,” said she; “but children, unfortunately, never know what is best for them. Amelia and I always said you were the cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your poor papa and come home with me?”
Sara took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody, and was in danger of being turned into the street; she was thinking of the cold, hungry hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchisedec in the attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the face.
“You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin,” she said; “you know quite well.”
A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin’s hard, angry face.
“You will never see your companions again,” she began. “I will see that Ermengarde and Lottie are kept away—”
Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness.
“Excuse me,” he said; “she will see anyone she wishes to see. The parents of Miss Crewe’s fellow-pupils are not likely to refuse her invitations to visit her at her guardian’s house. Mr. Carrisford will attend to that.”
It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse than the eccentric bachelor uncle who might have a peppery temper and be easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid mind could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow their children to remain friends with a little heiress of diamond-mines. And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how unhappy Sara Crewe had been made, many unpleasant things might happen.
“You have not undertaken an easy charge,” she said to the Indian gentleman, as she turned to leave the room; “you will discover that very soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose”—to Sara—“that you feel now that you are a princess again.”
Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet fancy might not be easy for strangers—even nice ones—to understand at first.
“I—tried not to be anything else,” she answered in a low voice—“even when I was coldest and hungriest—I tried not to be.”
“Now it will not be necessary to try,” said Miss Minchin, acidly, as Ram Dass salaamed her out of the room.
She returned home and, going to her sitting-room, sent at once for Miss Amelia. She sat closeted with her all the rest of the afternoon, and it must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one bad quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears, and mopped her eyes a good deal. One of her unfortunate remarks almost caused her sister to snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual manner.
“I’m not as clever as you, sister,” she said, “and I am always afraid to say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were not so timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I must say I’ve often thought it would have been
