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She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green." Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and looked back quietly at the children who looked at her.
Neither foot nor hoof had passed or even sounded in the distance. There was scarcely a whisper of the trees; an ordinary approach could have been heard for hundreds of yards, a stealthy one for tens. Langholm had heard nothing, though his ears were pricked. And yet he lowered his voice. "Do you actually hint that Mr. Steel has or could have been a gainer by Mr. Minchin's death?"
"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a whole dinner. I should be over-eating myself if I went on like this." It was dark when she reached the square in which Miss Minchin's Select Seminary was situated; the lamps were lighted, and in most of the windows gleams of light were to be seen.
Emily looked so like a real child that Captain Crewe felt glad she was there. He drew a big sigh and pulled his mustache with a boyish expression. "Heigh-ho, little Sara!" he said to himself "I don't believe you know how much your daddy will miss you." The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there. He was to sail away the next morning.
Minchin's paper, and by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation in the neighboring shops of Churchyard Lane as being afflicted with a tumor at first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg, but later in the day to be about the size of "your fist."
When he wanted to find her, and make restitution, he could discover no trace of her; and the certainty that she was poor and friendless somewhere had made him more miserable than ever. When he had taken the house next to Miss Minchin's he had been so ill and wretched that he had for the time given up the search.
"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to the point." "Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "she thinks it's all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she had it knocked out of her at school." "Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major.
She had been at Miss Minchin's school about two years when, one foggy winter's afternoon, as she was getting out of her carriage, comfortably wrapped up in her warmest velvets and furs and looking very much grander than she knew, she caught sight, as she crossed the pavement, of a dingy little figure standing on the area steps, and stretching its neck so that its wide-open eyes might peer at her through the railings.
Then, if Miss Perry happened to be in good humour, she would excuse Matilda from further lessons, invariably adding, in her "mystery" voice "But not a word to your mamma!" For some time they had no doubts as to the wisdom of Mrs. Minchin's choice. Miss Perry was clever enough not to display her romantic side to Mrs. Buller. She amused her, too, with Riflebury gossip, in which she was an adept.
Minchin's treachery to Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for the indifference with which he heard her wrongs; and had ended by laughing heartily when he compared the probable encounter between Mrs. Minchin and the bride to the deadly struggles of two quarrelsome "praying-mantises" in his collection.
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