a little princess《小公主》

A little princess

School in England (2)

Mr. Crewe stayed in London for a week. He and Sara went to the shops, and he bought many beautiful, expensive dresses for his daughter. He bought books, and flowers for her room, and a big doll with beautiful dresses, too.

Miss Minchin smiled, but she said to her sister Amelia: “All that money on dresses for a child of seven! She looks like a little princess, not a schoolgirl!”

When Mr. Crewe left London, he was very sad. Sara was very sad too, but she did not cry. She sat in her room and thought about her father on the ship back to India.

“Father wants me to be happy,” she said to her new doll. “I love him very much and I wanted to be a good daughter, so I must be happy.”

It was a very big, and very beautiful doll, but of course it could not answer.

Sara soon made new friends in the school. Some little rich girls are not very nice children—they think they are important because they have money and lots of expensive things. But Sara was different. She liked beautiful dresses and dolls, but she was more interested in people, and books, and telling stories.

She was very good at telling stories. She was a clever child, and the other girls loved to listen to her. The stories were all about kings and queens and princesses and wonderful countries across the sea.

“How do you think of all those things?” asked her best friend, Ermengarde.

“I have all these pictures in my head.” said Sara. “So it’s easy to tell stories about them.”

Poor Ermengarde was not clever. She could never remember any of her school lessons. “Listen, Ermie.” she said. “You remember that French king, Louis the Sixteenth? Well, this is a story about him. One day in 1792 …”

And so Ermengarde learnt her lessons through Sara’s stories, and she loved her friend very much. But not everybody was Sara’s friend. Lavinia was an older girl. Before Sara came, Lavinia was the richest and the most important girl in the school. But Sara’s father was richer than Lavinia’s father. So now Sara was more important than Lavinia, and Lavinia did not like that.

“Oh, Sara is so clever!” Lavinia often said. “Sara is so good at French! Her dresses are so beautiful, and she can sing so well! And she is so rich! Of course Miss Minchin likes her best!”

Sara did not answer when Lavinia said these things. Sometimes, it was not easy, but Sara was a kind, friendly girl, and she did not like to be angry with anyone.

2

The diamond mines

And so three years went by, Sara’s father wrote to her often, and Sara wrote loving little letters back to him. One day a very exciting letter arrived. Everybody in the school talked about it for days.

“My friend,” wrote Mr. Crewe, “has some mines in northern India, and a month ago his workers found diamonds there. There are thousands of diamonds in these mines, but it is expensive work to get them out. My friend needs my help. So, Little Missus