SARA CREWE

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large,
dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were
alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers
made the same heavy sound, and on still days--and nearly all the days
were still--seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock
was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the
brass plate there was inscribed in black letters,

+----------------------------------------+
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| MISS MINCHIN'S |
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| SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES. |
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+----------------------------------------+

Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading
that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she
had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she
was not "Select," and in the second, she was not a "Young Lady." When
she was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a
pupil, and left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from
India. Her mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her
with him as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was
making her very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her
with Miss Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies.
Sara, who had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things,
recollected hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world whom
he knew of, and so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school, and
he had heard Miss Minchin's establishment spoken of very highly. The
same day, he took Sara out and bought her a great many beautiful
clothes--clothes so grand and rich that only a very young and
inexperienced man would have bought them for a mite of a child who was
to be brought up in a boarding-school. But the fact was that he was a
rash, innocent young man, and very sad at the thought of parting with
his little girl, who was all he had left to remind him of her beautiful
mother, whom he had dearly loved. And he wished her to have everything
the most fortunate little girl could have; and so, when the polite
saleswomen in the shops said, "Here is our very latest thing in hats,
the plumes are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady Diana Sinclair
yesterday," he immediately bought what was offered to him, and paid
whatever was asked. The consequence was that Sara had a most
extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were silk and velvet and India
cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her
small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she returned in the
cab to Miss Minchin's with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed
quite as grandly as herself, too.