Elizabeth

She could even go and pay bills.

And she combined with this the ability to dust a room well and to set things in order.

Her own lessons became things of the past.

She was taught nothing, and only after long and busy days spent in running here and there at everybody's orders was she grudgingly allowed to go into the deserted schoolroom with a pile of old books and study alone at night.

If I do not remind myself of the things I have learnt,

One of the most curious things in her new existence was her changed position among the pupils.

Instead of being a sort of small, royal personage among them, she no longer seemed to be one of their number at all.

She was kept so constantly at work that she scarcely ever had an opportunity of speaking to any of them, and she could not avoid seeing that Miss Minchin preferred that she should live a life apart from that of the occupants of the schoolroom.

I will not have her forming intimacies and talking to the other children, that lady said,

Girls like a grievance, and if she begins to tell romantic stories about herself, she will become an ill-used heroine, and parents will be given a wrong impression.

I am giving her a home, and that is more than she has any right to expect from me.

Sarah did not expect much, and was far too proud to try to continue to be intimate with girls who evidently felt rather awkward and uncertain about her.

The fact was that Miss Minchin's pupils were a set of dull, matter-of-fact young pupils.

They were accustomed to being rich and comfortable, and as Sarah's frocks grew shorter and shabbier and queerer looking, and it became an established fact that she wore shoes with holes in them, and was sent out to buy groceries and carry them through the streets in a basket on her arm when the cook wanted them in a hurry.

They felt rather as if, when they spoke to her, they were addressing an under-servant.

To think that she was the girl with the diamond mines, Lavinia commented.

She does look an object, and she's queerer than ever.

I am, said Sarah promptly when she heard of this.

The truth was that she had saved herself annoyance several times by keeping her eye on Lavinia, who was quite ready to make mischief and would have been rather pleased to have made it for the ex-show pupil.

Sarah never made any mischief herself or interfered with anyone.