16. The Visitor
Imagine, if you , what the rest of the evening was like. How they crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made so much of itself itle grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes, and found rich, hot, savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. The mug from the washstand was used as Beckys tea cup, and the tea was so delicious that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea. They were warm and full-fed and happy, and it was just like Sara that, having fourange good fortune real, she should give herself up to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing that happened, and almost to cease, in a short time, to find it bewildering.
"I dont know anyone in the world who could have do," she said; "but there has been someone. And here we are sitting by their fire--and--and--its true! And whoever it is--wherever they are--I have a friend, Becky--someone is my friend."
It ot be dehat as they sat before the blazing fire, and ate the nourishing, fortable food, they felt a kind of rapturous awe, and looked into each others eyes with something like doubt.
"Do you think," Becky faltered once, in a whisper, "do you think it could melt away, miss? Hadter be quick?" And she hastily crammed her sandwito her mouth. If it was only a dream, kit manners would be overlooked.
"No, it wo away," said Sara. "I am eating this muffin, and I taste it. You never really eat things in dreams. You only think yoing to eat them. Besides, I keep giving myself pinches; and I touched a hot piece of coal just now, on purpose."
The sleepy fort which at length almost overpowered them was a heavenly thing. It was the drowsiness of happy, well-fed childhood, and they sat in the fire glow and luxuriated in it until Sara found herself turning to look at her transformed bed.
There were even blas enough to share with Becky. The narrow cou the attic was more fortable that night than its oct had ever dreamed that it could be.
As she went out of the room, Becky turned upohreshold and looked about her with dev eyes.
"If it aint here in the mornin, miss," she said, "its beeonight, anyways, an I shant never fet it." She looked at each particular thing, as if to it it to memory. "The fire was there", pointing with her finger, "aable was before it; an the lamp was there, an the light looked rosy red; an there was a satin cover on your bed, an a warm rug on the floor, ahin looked beautiful; an"--she paused a sed, and laid her hand oomach tenderly--"there was soup an sandwiches an muffins--there was." And, with this vi a reality at least, she went away.
Through the mysterious agency which works in schools and among servants, it was quite well known in the m that Sara Crewe was in horrible disgrace, that Ermengarde was under punishment, and that Becky would have been packed out of the house before breakfast, but that a scullery maid could not be dispensed with at ohe servants khat she was allowed to stay because Miss Min could not easily find another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden slave for so few shillings a week. The elder girls in the schoolroom khat if Miss Min did not send Sara away it was for practical reasons of her own.
"Shes growing so fast and learning such a lot, somehow," said Jessie to Lavinia,