ONE day in the week I found little Sara all by herself in the library, very much engrossed about something. Indeed, she was in deep study, if that was to be believed. She had the great volume of the history of the county spread out before her, and a “Peerage” by her side; and at her other hand were some trumpery little books about Chester, of the handbook kind, Chester being, as everybody knows, a place of great antiquity, and, indeed, a kind of show place in this part of the country. She did not hear me when I came in, and as I came to an astonished pause behind her, quite bewildered to know what the little kitten could want with that great book, it was impossible she could see me. She was quite at the end of the county history, going over all the details about the families, and looking up the peerage, I could see, to find out all the connections and collateral branches. What could the child be so anxious about? Not our family, certainly, for we had no collateral branches. Just once for an instant, it shot through my mind, that her father might somehow have{115} put that sly secret idea of his own, that, if she played her cards well, we might leave her heiress of the Park, in little Sara’s head; but a moment’s thought convinced me that there was nothing in that. She was far too bold and simple for any such plan; she would have repeated it out to me directly and scorned it; and she had not an idea of the value of wealth, or what was the good of being very rich. If I could have made her a Mortimer, she might have thought twice about it, but not for being made simply an heiress; that was a matter to which Sara was quite indifferent.
But if it could not be us, who could it be? Had the child, perhaps, an admirer among some of the county families? I made a little rustle, I suppose, as I stood watching her; for she turned sharp round, found me out, and flushed up violently. In her hasty annoyance she threw the book over, shutting it upon her morsel of a hand, and defied me, turning round on her seat. Certainly if Mr. Cresswell had instructed his daughter to be very good, and amiable, and conciliatory, he had taken the very best plan to bring about a failure. Oh! but she was contrairy; the poor dear unfortunate man, what a life he must have led with that little puss!
“Godmamma!” cried Sara, with her eyes flashing, “I never knew that you spied upon people before!”
“Nor did I,” said I, quietly. “You may flatter yourself you are quite the first that ever found it out. Don’t crush your hand to pieces, child! I don’t want to know what you are about.”
On this the impatient little girl threw the book open again with a sound that echoed through all the library.
“Everybody may know what I am doing! Now don’t be angry, godmamma, I mean I quite intended to tell you if I found anything,” cried Sara. “Look here, this is just what it is. You said you had promised to help that poor Italian gentleman, and I know quite well you have never tried yet to find out anything for him. You need not look suspicious. I am interested about him. There is no harm in that, is there? If he were as old as Ellis, and as fat as his servant, I should be interested in him all the same.”
“Little Sara, never tell fibs,” said I. “I am just fifty, and you are only seventeen; but I should not be interested in him, all the same, if he were old and fat, I assure you. Let me hear, now, what you have been doing. You have nothing at all to do with him, remember; it was me, and only me, he applied to; but let us hear what it is.”{116}
“Oh, it is nothing at all,” said Sara in a disappointed tone. “I thought somebody might be found out, in some of these books, that had married an Italian. I like the ‘Peerage;’ it is the funniest thing in the world to see how all the people are twisted and linked together like network. Everybody in the world must be everybody else’s cousin, if all the common people’s families were like the peers.”
“To be sure we are,” said I, “only so distant it won’t count; but I don’t see what this has to do with what we were talking of before. Did you find nobody that had married an Italian in all the ‘Peerage,’ Puss?”
“You are trying to make me angry, godmamma,” said Sara, “but I shan’t be angry. There is no Countess Sermoneta, though I have looked over all the county families, and all their connections that I can make out; and papa, who knows everybody, does not know any such person, for I made him think and tell me; and the only person I can think of who does know is——”
Here little Sara stopped and looked very closely and keenly in my face.
“Who, child?” said I. “Not me, I am certain. Whom do you mean?”
“Can’t you guess?” “Why, godmamma Sarah, to be sure,” cried Sara. “I am quite sure she knows who the Countess Sermoneta is.”
“Child!” cried I, “do you know what you are saying? Your godmamma Sarah! how dare you think of such a thing!”
“Dare? is it anything wrong?” said Sara. “You are making a great deal more mystery of it than I should do, godmamma. After all, it isn’t a bit mysterious. Mr. Luigi wants to find this lady, and not knowing the country, he has come most likely to the wrong place; and I am sure he asks for her plain enough out. He could not do it plainer if she were Mrs. Smith instead of Countess Sermoneta; and there is nothing secret about it that I can see; only this, that godmamma Sarah knows her, and is so cross she won’t tell.”
“Sara, Sara, don’t say so!” cried I, “you make me quite unhappy. How can your godmamma, who never sets her foot out of doors, one may say,—for she would almost see as much in her own chamber as out of the carriage windows,—how could she possibly know a person no one else knows? And as for being cross, I really consider it very disrespect............