It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in its row, but that on the front door there shone (shine的过去式, 闪耀) a brass plate (铜牌) on which was engraved (雕刻) in black letters:
MISS MINCHIN,
Select Seminary for Young Ladies (高级女童培育院).
"Here we are, Sara," said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound as cheerful as possible.
Then he lifted her out of the cab and they mounted (爬上) the steps and rang the bell.
Sara often thought afterward (后来) that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin.
It was respectable (体面的) and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly; and the very armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them.
In the hall everything was hard and polished (擦亮的) -even the red cheeks of the moon face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe varnished look.
The drawing room into which they were ushered (引导) was covered by a carpet with a square pattern upon it, the chairs were square, and a heavy marble timepiece (钟表) stood upon the heavy marble mantel (壁炉架).{1}
As she sat down in one of the stiff (僵硬的) mahogany (红木) chairs, Sara cast one of her quick looks about her.
"I don't like it, papa," she said. "But then I dare say soldiers-even brave ones-don't really like going into battle."
Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, and he never tired of hearing Sara's queer speeches.
"Oh, little Sara," he said. "What shall I do when I have no one to say solemn (严肃的) things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are."
"But why do solemn things make you laugh so?" inquired Sara.
"Because you are such fun when you say them," he answered, laughing still more.
And then suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and looking almost as if tears had come into his eyes.
It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room.
She was very like her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly.
She had large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile.
It spread itself into a very large smile when she saw Sara and Captain Crewe.
She had heard a great many desirable (令人满意的) things of the young soldier from the lady who had recommended her school to him.
Among other things, she had heard that he was a rich father who was willing to spend a great deal of money on his little daughter.
"It will be a great privilege (荣幸) to have charge of such a beautiful and promising (有前途的) child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's hand and stroking (轻抚) it.
"Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A clever child is a great treasure (宝藏) in an establishment (机构) like mine."
Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's face. She was thinking something odd, as usual.
"Why does she say I am a beautiful child?" she was thinking. "I am not beautiful at all.
Colonel Grange's little girl, Isobel, is beautiful. She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long hair the color of gold.
I have short black hair and green eyes; besides which, I am a thin child and not fair in the least.
I am one of the ugliest children I ever saw. She is beginning by telling a story."
She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child.
She was not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. {2}
She was a slim, supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive little face.
Her hair was heavy and quite black and only curled at the tips; her eyes were greenish gray, it is true, but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though she herself did not like the color of them, many other people did. {3}
Still she was very firm (坚定的) in her belief that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all elated (兴高采烈的) by Miss Minchin's flattery (奉承).
"I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful," she thought; "and I should know I was telling a story.
I believe I am as ugly as she is-in my way. What did she say that for?"
After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had said it.
She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa and mamma who brought a child to her school.
Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin talked.
She had been brought to the seminary (学校) because Lady Meredith's two little girls had been educated there, and Captain Crewe had a great respect for Lady Meredith's experience.
Sara was to be what was known as "a parlor boarder (优待寄宿生)," and she was to enjoy even greater privileges than parlor boarders usually did.
She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her nurse in India.
"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it.
"The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much.
She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books.
She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles (狼吞虎咽) them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl.
She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books-great, big, fat ones-French and German as well as English-history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things.
Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. She ought to play more with dolls."
"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every few days I should have more than I could be fond of.
Dolls ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend."
Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at Captain Crewe.
"Who is Emily?" she inquired.
"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling.
Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she answered.
"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said. "She is a doll papa is going to buy for me.
We are going out together to find her. I have called her Emily.
She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I want her to talk to about him."
Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering (奉承的) indeed.
"What an original child!" she said. "What a darling little creature!"
"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. "She is a darling little creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin."
Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact, she remained with him until he sailed away again to India.
They went out and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things.
They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed; but Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself, so between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of seven. {4}
There were velvet (天鹅绒的) dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich feathers, and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign princess-perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah. {5}
And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her.
"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. "I want her to look as if she listens when I talk to her.
The trouble with dolls, papa"-and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said it-"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to hear."
So they looked at big ones and little ones-at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue-at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed.
"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes.
"If, when I find her, she has no frocks (连衣裙), we can take her to a dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if they are tried on."
