It was only a bundle of wool wrapped (包裹) in red and white tissue paper, but the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament (装饰) the candlestick (烛台) which was to light the feast.{1}
Only the Magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a long-unopened trunk.
But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.
"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic-"is it the Bastille now-or has it turned into somethin' different?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet (宴会) hall!"
"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.
"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber (房间) where feasts are given. It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney filled with blazing oaken (栎木制的) logs, and it is brilliant (闪耀的) with waxen tapers (小蜡烛) twinkling on every side."{2}
"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under the weight of her hamper (食盒). She started back with an exclamation (惊叫) of joy.
To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self confronted (面对) by a totally unanticipated (意料之外的) festal board, draped (覆盖) with red, adorned with white napery (餐桌用布), and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant indeed. {3}
"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!"
"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old trunk. I asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look."
"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are!
They ain't just-oh, miss, please tell her," appealing (恳求) to Sara.
So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her almost see it all: the golden platters-the vaulted (拱形的) spaces-the blazing logs-the twinkling waxen tapers.{4}
As the things were taken out of the hamper-the frosted cakes-the fruits-the bonbons and the wine-the feast became a splendid thing.
"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde.
"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky.
Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.
"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said. "Pretend you are a princess now and this is a royal feast."
"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we will be your maids of honor."
"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how. You be her."
"Well, if you want me to," said Sara.
But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.
"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed (塞满) in here!" she exclaimed.
"If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it was a real fire."
She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room.
"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its not being real."
She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.
"Doesn't it look real?" she said. "Now we will begin the party."
She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream.
"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be seated at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you."
She turned her head slightly toward the corner of the room.
"What, ho, there, minstrels! Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses," she explained rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels to play at their feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. Now we will begin."{5}
They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their hands-not one of them had time to do more, when-they all three sprang to their feet and turned pale faces toward the door-listening-listening.
Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of all things had come.
"It's-the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon the floor.
"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white face. "Miss Minchin has found us out."
Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale herself, but it was with rage.
She looked from the frightened faces to the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of the burnt paper in the grate.
"I have been suspecting (怀疑) something of this sort," she exclaimed; "but I did not dream of such audacity (大胆). Lavinia was telling the truth."
So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret and had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode (跨过) over to Becky and boxed her ears for a second time.
"You impudent creature!" she said. "You leave the house in the morning!"
Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. Ermengarde burst into tears.
"Oh, don't send her away," she sobbed. "My aunt sent me the hamper. We're-only-having a party."
"So I see," said Miss Minchin, witheringly. "With the Princess Sara at the head of the table." She turned fiercely on Sara.
"It is your doing, I know," she cried. "Ermengarde would never have thought of such a thing. You decorated the table, I suppose-with this rubbish." She stamped her foot at Becky.
"Go to your attic!" she commanded, and Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking.
Then it was Sara's turn again.
"I will attend to you tomorrow. You shall have neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper!"
"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said Sara, rather faintly (微弱地).
"Then all the better. You will have something to remember. Don't stand there. Put those things into the hamper again."
She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and caught sight of Ermengarde's new books.
"And you"-to Ermengarde-"have brought your beautiful new books into this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would he say if he knew where you are tonight?"
Something she saw in Sara's grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her turn on her fiercely.
"What are you thinking of?" she demanded. "Why do you look at me like that?"
"I was wondering," answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day in the schoolroom.
"What were you wondering?"
It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness (无礼) in Sara's manner. It was only sad and quiet.
"I was wondering," she said in a low voice, "what my papa would say if he knew where I am tonight."
Miss Minchin was infuriated (感到愤怒的) just as she had been before and her anger expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate (激烈的) fashion. She flew at her and shook her.
"You insolent (傲慢的), unmanageable (难管理的) child!" she cried. "How dare you! How dare you!"
She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the hamper in a jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde's arms, and pushed her before her toward the door.
"I will leave you to wonder," she said. "Go to bed this instant."
And she shut the door behind herself and poor stumbling (蹒跚的) Ermengarde, and left Sara standing quite alone.
