A Little Princess

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“If I was a princess—a real princess,” she murmured, “I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. I’ll pretend that to do things people like is scattering largess. I’ve scattered largess.”

Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.

“Everything’s a story. You are a story—I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.”

If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.

“Somehow, something always happens,” she cried, “just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worst thing never quite comes.”