13. One of the Populace
The winter was a wretched ohere were days on which Sara tramped through snow when she went on her errands; there were worse days when the snow melted and biself with mud to form slush; there were others when the fog was so thick that the lamps ireet were lighted all day and London looked as it had looked the afternoon, several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thhfares with Sara tucked up on its seat, leaning against her fathers shoulder. On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked delightfully cozy and alluring, and the study in which the Indialeman sat glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was dismal beyond words. There were no longer sus or suo look at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds hung low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping heavy rain. At four oclo the afternoon, evehere was no special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to light a dle. The women i were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered than ever. Becky was driven like a little slave.
"Twarnt for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night when she had crept into the attic--"twarnt for you, an the Bastille, ahe prisoner in the cell, I should die. That there does seem real now, doesnt it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook shes like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss--tell me about the subtranean passage weve dug uhe walls."
"Ill tell you something warmer," shivered Sara. "Get your coverlet and it round you, and Ill get mine, and we will huddle close together on the bed, and Ill tell you about the tropical forest where the Indialemans monkey used to live. When I see him sitting oable he window and looking out into the street with that mournful expression, I always feel sure he is thinking about the tropical forest where he used to swing by his tail from ut trees. I wonder who caught him, and if he left a family behind who had depended on him for uts."
"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways, even the Bastille is sort of heatin when you gets to tellin about it."
"That is because it makes you think of something else," said Sara, ing the coverlet round her until only her small dark face was to be seen looking out of it. "Ive noticed this. What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else."
" you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes.
Sara knitted her brows a moment.
"Sometimes I and sometimes I t," she said stoutly. "But when I Im all right. And what I believe is that we always could--if we practiced enough. Ive been practig a good deal lately, and its beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are horrible--just horrible--I think as hard as ever I of being a princess. I say to myself, `I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and because I am a fairy nothing hurt me or make me unfortable. You dont know how it makes you fet"-- with a laugh.
She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else, and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she rincess. But one of the stroests she was ever put to came on a certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, woul