inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or amiable.
"Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile.
"I stopped," explained Sara, "because I knew it was Lottie,—and I thought, perhaps—just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try. Miss Minchin?"
"If you can. You are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in everything," she said in her approving way. "I dare say you can manage her. Go in." And she left her.
When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then another.
"Poor darling!" she said one moment; "I know you have n't any mamma, poor—" Then in quite another tone:
"If you don't stop, Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel! There—there! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you! I will!"
Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and excitedly.
