Sara Crewe

OR

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large,
dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were
alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers
made the same heavy sound, and on still days--and nearly all the days
were still--seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock
was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the
brass plate there was inscribed in black letters,

MISS MINCHIN'S

SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES

Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading that
door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she had
decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was
not "Select," and in the second she was not a "Young Lady." When she was
eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a pupil, and
left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from India. Her
mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her with him
as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was making her
very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her with Miss
Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara, who
had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things, recollected
hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world whom he knew
of, and so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school, and he had
heard Miss Minchin's establishment spoken of very highly. The same day,
he took Sara out and bought her a great many beautiful clothes--clothes
so grand and rich that only a very young and inexperienced man would
have bought them for a mite of a child who was to be brought up in a
boarding-school. But the fact was that he was a rash, innocent young
man, and very sad at the thought of parting with his little girl, who
was all he had left to remind him of her beautiful mother, whom he had
dearly loved. And he wished her to have everything the most fortunate
little girl could have; and so, when the polite saleswomen in the shops
said, "Here is our very latest thing in hats, the plumes are exactly the
same as those we sold to Lady Diana Sinclair yesterday," he immediately
bought what was offered to him, and paid whatever was asked. The
consequence was that Sara had a most extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses
were silk and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and bonnets were
covered with bows and plumes, her small undergarments were adorned with
real lace, and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin's with a doll
almost as large as herself, dressed quite as grandly as herself, too.

Then her papa gave Miss