A Little Princess / Маленькая принцесса. Книга для чтения на английском языке

”

“I’ve often thought,” said Sara, in her reflecting voice, “that I should like to be a princess; I wonder what it feels like. I believe I will begin pretending I am one.”

Becky stared at her admiringly, and, as before, did not understand her in the least. She watched her with a sort of adoration. Very soon Sara left her reflections and turned to her with a new question.

“Becky,” she said, “weren’t you listening to that story?”

“Yes, miss,” confessed Becky, a little alarmed again. “I knowed I hadn’t orter[113 - I knowed I hadn’t orter = I knew I hadn’t been ordered], but it was that beautiful I – I couldn’t help it.

“I liked you to listen to it,” said Sara. “If you tell stories, you like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to listen. I don’t know why it is. Would you like to hear the rest?”

Becky lost her breath again.

“Me hear it?” she cried. “Like as if I was a pupil, miss! All about the Prince – and the little white Mer-babies[114 - Mer-babies = baby mermaids] swimming about laughing – with stars in their hair?”

Sara nodded.

“You haven’t time to hear it now, I’m afraid,” she said; “but if you will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. It’s a lovely long one – and I’m always putting new bits to it.”

“Then,” breathed Becky, devoutly, “I wouldn’t mind HOW heavy the coal boxes was – or WHAT the cook done to me, if – if I might have that to think of.

“You may,” said Sara. “I’ll tell it ALL to you.”

When Becky went downstairs, she was not the same Becky who had staggered up, loaded down by the weight of the coal scuttle. She had an extra piece of cake in her pocket, and she had been fed and warmed, but not only by cake and fire. Something else had warmed and fed her, and the something else was Sara.

When she was gone Sara sat on her favorite perch on the end of her table.

“If I WAS a princess – a REAL princess,” she murmured, “I could scatter largess to the populace.[115 - I could scatter largess to the populace. – Я могла бы щедро одаривать народ.] 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.