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Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to control herself. She looked all round
the attic and saw no one. And yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone. She thought of ghosts.
"Is it--something that will frighten me?" she asked timorously.
"Some people are afraid of them," said Sara. "I was at first-- but I am not now."
"Was it--a ghost?" quaked Ermengarde.
"No," said Sara, laughing. "It was my rat."
Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the little dingy bed. She tucked her feet under her
nightgown and the red shawl. She did not scream, but she gasped with fright.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried under her breath. "A rat! A rat!"
"I was afraid you would be frightened," said Sara. "But you needn't be. I am making him tame. He actually
knows me and comes out when I call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him?"
The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of scraps brought up from the kitchen, her
curious friendship had developed, she had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming
familiar with was a mere rat.
At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a heap upon the bed and tuck up her
feet, but the sight of Sara's composed little countenance and the story of Melchisedec's first appearance began
at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward over the edge of the bed and watched Sara go and kneel
The Legal Small Print 57
down by the hole in the skirting board.
"He--he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?" she said.
"No," answered Sara. "He's as polite as we are. He is just like a person. Now watch!"
She began to make a low, whistling sound--so low and coaxing that it could only have been heard in entire
stillness. She did it several times, looking entirely absorbed in it. Ermengarde thought she looked as if she
were working a spell. And at last, evidently in response to it, a gray-whiskered, bright-eyed head peeped out
of the hole. Sara had some crumbs in her hand. She dropped them, and Melchisedec came quietly forth and ate
them. A piece of larger size than the rest he took and carried in the most businesslike manner back to his
home.
"You see," said Sara, "that is for his wife and children. He is very nice. He only eats the little bits. After he
goes back I can always hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three kinds of squeaks. One kind is the
children's, and one is Mrs. Melchisedec's, and one is Melchisedec's own."
Ermengarde began to laugh.
"Oh, Sara!" she said. "You ARE queer--but you are nice."
"I know I am queer," admitted Sara, cheerfully; "and I TRY to be nice." She rubbed her forehead with her
little brown paw, and a puzzled, tender look came into her face. "Papa always laughed at me," she said; "but I
liked it. He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up things. I--I can't help making up things. If I
didn't, I don't believe I could live." She paused and glanced around the attic. "I'm sure I couldn't live here," she
added in a low voice.
Ermengarde was interested, as she always was. "When you talk about things," she said, "they seem as if they
grew real. You talk about Melchisedec as if he was a person."
"He IS a person," said Sara. "He gets hungry and frightened, just as we do; and he is married and has children.
How do we know he doesn't think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. That was why I
gave him a name."
She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees.
"Besides," she said, "he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can always get a bit of bread the cook has
thrown away, and it is quite enough to support him."
"Is it the Bastille yet?" asked Ermengarde, eagerly. "Do you always pretend it is the Bastille?"
"Nearly always," answered Sara. "Sometimes I try to pretend it is another kind of place; but the Bastille is
generally easiest-- particularly when it is cold."
Just at that moment Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed, she was so startled by a sound she heard. It was
like two distinct knocks on the wall.
"What is that?" she exclaimed.
Sara got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically:
"It is the prisoner in the next cell."
The Legal Small Print 58
"Becky!" cried Ermengarde, enraptured.
"Yes," said Sara. "Listen; the two knocks meant, `Prisoner, are you there?'"
She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer.
"That means, `Yes, I am here, and all is well.'"
Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall.
"That means," explained Sara, "`Then, fellow-sufferer, we will sleep in peace. Good night.'"
Ermengarde quite beamed with delight.
"Oh, Sara!" she whispered joyfully. "It is like a story!"
"It IS a story," said Sara. "EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story--I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story."
And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself,
and had to be reminded by Sara that she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal noiselessly
downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed.
10
The Indian Gentleman
But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be
quite sure when Sara would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss Amelia would not
make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits
were rare ones, and Sara lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier life when she was downstairs than
when she was in her attic. She had no one to talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked
through the streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying to hold her hat on when the wind
was blowing, and feeling the water soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds
hurrying past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the Princess Sara, driving through the
streets in her brougham, or walking, attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager little face and
picturesque coats and hats had often caused people to look after her. A happy, beautifully cared for little girl
naturally attracts attention. Shabby, poorly dressed children are not rare enough and pretty enough to make
people turn around to look at them and smile. No one looked at Sara in these days, and no one seemed to see
her as she hurried along the crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, and, as she was dressed
only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of her wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer,
indeed. All her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left for her use she was
expected to wear so long as she could put them on at all. Sometimes, when she passed a shop window with a
mirror in it, she almost laughed outright on catching a glimpse of herself, and sometimes her face went red
and she bit her lip and turned away.
In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were lighted up, she used to look into the warm
rooms and amuse herself by imagining things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or about the
tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of rooms before the shutters were closed. There were several
families in the square in which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a way of her
own. The one she liked best she called the Large Family. She called it the Large Family not because the
members of it were big- -for, indeed, most of them were little--but because there were so many of them. There
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