Читать книгу A Little Princess / Маленькая принцесса. А1 - Фрэнсис-Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт - Страница 6

Ermengarde was not the only friend Sara made in the school. Smaller children especially loved Sara for her mother-like behavior. She could calm any crying child by just talking to them. They loved her made up stories about fairies and knights, kings and queens. Children used to gather around her to listen to her. And when she told her stories, she looked very interested herself.

“When I tell it,” she would say, “it doesn't seem as if it was only made up. It seems more real than you are-more real than the schoolroom. I feel I can become all the people in the story-one after the other. It is strange.”

It was almost two years of Sara being in Miss Minchin's school. She was sitting in the midst of a group of listeners in a corner of the schoolroom telling one of her stories. It was a wonderful story about a princess who was loved by a Prince Merman, and went to live with him in shining caves under the sea. Sara noticed that the servant girl who swept the hearth did her job rather slowly. Sara was smart enough to see that the girl was deeply interested in her story. She raised her voice and continued. Suddenly the hearth brush fell from the work-roughened hand. Lavinia Herbert looked round.

“That girl was listening,” she said.

Sara felt rather angry.

“I knew she was listening,” she said. “Why shouldn't she?”

“Well,” Lavinia remarked, “I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know my mamma wouldn't like me