A Little Princess (Children's Classics)

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Let us sit down,” said Sara, “and I will tell you. It’s so easy that when you begin you can’t stop. You just go on and on doing it always. And it’s beautiful.

“Lavinia and Jessie are ‘best friends,’” she said rather huskily. “I wish we could be ‘best friends.’ Would you have me for yours? You’re clever, and I’m the stupidest child in the school, but I—oh, I do so like you!”

“If you don’t stop, Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel! There—! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you! I will!”

She was always awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid she was given to being.

“I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat,” she mused. “Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out, ‘Oh, a horrid rat!’ I shouldn’t like people to scream and jump and say, ‘Oh, a horrid Sara!’ the moment they saw me. And set traps for me, and pretend they were dinner. It’s so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a sparrow?’”

When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn’t said afterward.

There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.”