A Little Princess guide

Summary

Characters

• CreweGuardianFrom Chapter 1
• SaraAlso CreweLeadFrom Chapter 1
• AmeliaAlso MinchinGuardianFrom Chapter 1
• MinchinVillainFrom Chapter 1
• BarrowGatekeeperFrom Chapter 1
• LaviniaRivalFrom Chapter 2
• LottieChildFrom Chapter 2
• MarietteHelperFrom Chapter 2
• JessieChildFrom Chapter 2
• ErmengardeHelperFrom Chapter 3
• BeckyHelperFrom Chapter 5
• MelchisedecOtherFrom Chapter 9
• Guy ClarenceChildFrom Chapter 10
• JanetChildFrom Chapter 10
• RamAlso DassHelperFrom Chapter 11
• CarrisfordGuardianFrom Chapter 12
• CarmichaelHelperFrom Chapter 12

Chapter by chapter

Storylines

• Sara must live at school without her father despite her desire to remain with him. After his departure, she locks herself away and asks for solitude.

  • Separation still overwhelms Sara, but she renews her resolve to endure it and turns to imaginative conversation to manage her grief.
  • The separation continues, and Crewe's wish to return now depends on settling his business.
  • Temporary separation at school becomes permanent bereavement, ending the prospect of reunion.

• Sara and Crewe share a close attachment that makes separation painful; each recognizes or responds to the other's distress.

  • Sara's renewed grief reveals the continuing strength of her attachment, and she explains her love and promise to Ermengarde.
  • Their correspondence sustains their attachment: Crewe arranges presents, takes pleasure in Sara's reply despite his anxiety, and longs to return to her.
  • Crewe's death ends their living relationship; Sara's isolated grief shows the attachment's continuing force.

• Crewe intends to conceal how little he accepts their separation, although Sara has already recognized his sadness.

• Crewe intends to sustain Sara during their separation by sending books and writing twice weekly.

  • Crewe communicates news of his enterprise and sends a letter; Sara's reply confirms their continuing exchange.
  • His birthday books reach Sara, but his death prevents continued correspondence and provision.

• Sara accepts schooling as the means to return to her father and care for him when she is grown.

  • Her father's death makes returning to care for him impossible.

• Minchin receives Sara as a specially privileged pupil backed by Crewe's wealth, while Sara privately distrusts Minchin's indiscriminate flattery.

  • Sara's special standing becomes publicly established, while Minchin's private criticism and subsequent humiliation develop into a grudge against her.
  • Minchin continues publicly elevating Sara while becoming annoyed that Sara has overheard her harsh handling of Lottie; Sara feels chilled by her sharpness.
  • Sara resents Minchin's public emphasis on wealth; once that wealth disappears, Minchin ends her privileged treatment and makes her a dependent worker.

• Crewe entrusts Sara's care to Minchin, requesting limits on excessive reading, encouragement of riding and dolls, and generous provision for her pleasures; his English agents will handle advice and payment.

  • Sara's private playroom demonstrates provision for her pleasures in accordance with Crewe's request.
  • The agents disclaim financial responsibility, and Minchin replaces Crewe's arrangements for Sara's care with labour, withdrawn comforts and attic accommodation.

• Sara and Crewe plan to find and buy Emily as Sara's companion during his absence; the search culminates in Emily's purchase.

• Sara gives Emily the role of daughter, companion and future confidante, undertaking to care for her as a mother.

  • Sara renews her commitment to companionship and confidences with Emily and includes her in school life by giving her a reading book.
  • Sara extends Emily's imagined life through attempts to catch her moving and introduces her to Ermengarde, sharing her companion and the fantasy surrounding her.
  • Emily participates in Sara's hospitality and gains a place as Lottie's pretend sister within Sara's expanded maternal role.
  • Emily remains beside Sara during her confrontation with Minchin and is recalled as her father's gift.
  • Sara increasingly longs for Emily to answer her. Under severe distress she knocks Emily down, then restores her with remorse, maintaining the doll's role as an emotionally significant companion.

• Sara's wish for privacy after her father's departure obstructs the school's attempt to check on her, alarming Amelia.

• Mariette begins to like Sara and praises her manners to the head housemaid.

• Minchin assumes Sara needs elementary French and interprets her attempts to explain as reluctance to learn; Sara struggles to correct the misunderstanding without behaving rudely.

• Sara plans to explain her existing knowledge of French to Dufarge.

• Dufarge responds with pleasure to Sara's fluent French and French upbringing.

• Minchin begins to hold a grudge against Sara after her exposed mistake mortifies her and the pupils' amusement increases her anger.

  • Being overheard in an undignified, unamiable moment gives Minchin a further source of annoyance involving Sara, and her sharpness strains their interaction.
  • Minchin's resentment becomes explicit hostility, intensified by financial loss, Becky's loyalty and Sara's refusal to acknowledge her treatment as kindness.
  • Minchin expresses her hostility through immediate degradation, increasing service, exclusion from instruction and deliberate social isolation.
  • Sara's composure increases Minchin's resentment; the confrontation brings physical punishment, public exposure of Sara's imagined superiority and a momentary fear that she might possess real power.
  • Minchin's hostility escalates into a declared food deprivation and physical violence.
  • Sara's unexplained well-being frustrates Minchin's punitive expectations; evidence of a potentially powerful protector then makes Minchin restore privileges out of apprehension.
  • Minchin's horror at her mistake gives way to an attempt to discredit Sara as untruthful and ungrateful.

• Ermengarde struggles to retain her lessons under her father's demand that she learn, suffering repeated disgrace, public reprimand and ridicule from other pupils.

  • More paternal reading demands prompt a teaching arrangement suited to Ermengarde, but Minchin's threatened letter introduces further trouble with her father.

• Sara's sympathy for Ermengarde develops into an explicitly accepted friendship; Ermengarde adores Sara, who shares her imaginative world and distress with her.

  • Sara shares with Ermengarde her doubts about whether advantages and untested good temper demonstrate goodness, deepening their personal confidence.
  • Ermengarde shares Sara's imaginative delight in the diamond mines.
  • Mutual misunderstanding interrupts their friendship, but their explanations restore affection and lead to agreed future visits.
  • Ermengarde visits Sara in the attic, responds affectionately to her friendship with the rat and shares the imaginative world of Sara and Becky's prison signals.
  • The friends exchange intellectual help and material care: Sara offers teaching, and Ermengarde responds to Sara's hunger by sharing her hamper.
  • Sara shares her changed circumstances with Ermengarde, who rejoices, tells the school and plans a visit.

• Sara resolves to bear separation from her father without breaking down, keeping her promise to him.

  • Renewed grief and longing continue to test Sara's resolve to bear separation from her father.

• Ermengarde rarely sees her father, who remains occupied with reading in his library; Sara's question about loving him embarrasses her.

• Sara plans to keep talking about pretending to help herself bear her grief.

  • After grief temporarily deprives Sara of imaginative comfort, shared imagining revives it and gives her a way to make the attic bearable.
  • Practiced imagination increasingly helps Sara escape her misery, and she extends its comfort to Becky through a warming story.

• Sara offers to help Ermengarde with her French lessons.

  • Ermengarde reports that Sara's teaching has helped her learn conjugations and improve her French exercises.

• Lavinia resents Sara's displacement of her in dress and standing, rejects praise of Sara's modesty, and disparages her pretending.

  • Lavinia exposes Becky as a listener, driving her away and provoking Sara's anger at her treatment.
  • Lavinia turns knowledge of Sara's princess pretend into public mockery. Sara feels humiliated and angry but restrains herself; the other pupils' interest helps turn the mockery into an enduring epithet with both affectionate and derisive uses.
  • Lavinia receives a public reprimand for her snort and possible jealousy, although the doll's belongings briefly draw her unguarded admiration.
  • Lavinia occupies Sara's former privileged seat and criticizes her scrutiny, while Sara's vigilance frustrates Lavinia's attempts to make mischief.
  • Lavinia's mockery provokes a sharp reply in Sara's mind, but Sara suppresses the sneering response.
  • Lavinia reports the secret activity to Minchin, exposing Sara and her companions to punishment.
  • Lavinia obtains information about the attic gathering from Lottie and reports it to Minchin.

• Sara becomes a trusted protector and companion of the younger pupils through comfort, shared possessions, invitations and resistance to Lavinia's treatment of Lottie.

  • Sara's storytelling attracts followers and strengthens her position as a companion to other pupils.
  • Sara leaves her reading to comfort the injured Lottie, offers a story, and opposes Lavinia's wish to slap her.
  • Sara continues teaching the younger pupils, receives comfort from their affection, and explains the neighbor's condition to Lottie.

• Lottie habitually invokes her motherlessness to obtain attention and indulgence.

• Lottie's resistance to washing and brushing brings her into conflict with the school's authorities; their threats intensify her distress until Sara secures her willing cooperation.

• Sara undertakes to calm Lottie alone, using quiet attention, their shared motherlessness, imaginative consolation and a pretend family.

• Sara's acquaintance with Lottie becomes an adopted mother-and-child relationship, with Emily included as Lottie's pretend sister.

  • Lottie seeks Sara's company and accepts comfort and guidance through their adopted mother-and-child relationship.
  • Lottie seeks Sara out despite her changed circumstances and tries to control her crying to protect her. Their embrace comforts Sara, whose imaginative account turns Lottie's distress about the attic into delight.

• Sara proposes telling Emily about their new family arrangement, then washing Lottie's face and brushing her hair; Lottie agrees and accompanies her upstairs.

• Sara wants to speak to Becky after noticing her interest in the story and learning about her difficult circumstances.

• Becky's fear of punishment and dismissal obstructs her acceptance of Sara's attention, hospitality and stories; Sara's reassurance gradually eases that fear.

  • Becky repeatedly accepts food, visits, stories and shared laughter, showing that Sara's companionship increasingly overcomes the barrier to accepting her kindness.
  • Permission briefly allows Becky to enjoy Sara's hospitality, but fear drives her into hiding; compassion then overcomes that fear despite renewed threats.
  • Fear of punishment still shapes Becky's conduct, but she repeatedly helps Sara and establishes a discreet nightly signal.

• Sara becomes Becky's compassionate protector, host and storyteller; Becky responds with adoring admiration and finds comfort in her kindness.

  • Their friendship deepens through regular nourishment and companionship. Becky's handmade birthday gift elicits Sara's appreciation, embrace and explicit declaration of love.
  • Sara secures Becky's inclusion at the party; after Sara's reversal, Becky reciprocates with loyalty, practical guidance and loving comfort that Sara accepts.
  • Their companionship becomes reciprocal: Becky's proximity comforts Sara, and Becky offers practical help and nightly availability.
  • Sara and Becky maintain companionship across their separating wall through an established exchange of reassurance and good-night signals.
  • Sara's affection for Becky increases; Becky visits her attic and shares news, which they discuss together.
  • Becky again seeks Sara's attic companionship and finds grateful comfort in her proposed story.
  • Sara grieves over Becky's abuse, includes her in the planned feast, and immediately brings her to share the transformed attic.
  • Sara shares bedding and renewed comforts with Becky and includes her in the thanks to their benefactor; Becky becomes better nourished and less fearful.
  • Becky fears losing Sara, but Sara remembers her distress and secures a place for her in the new household.
  • Becky now accompanies Sara as her attendant, carrying their attachment into Sara's restored circumstances.

• Sara resolves to pretend she is a princess and makes her acts of kindness the distribution of a princess's largess.

  • Sara uses princess-like conduct to control her temper under interruption and public humiliation, openly explains its purpose, and continues distributing food and comfort to Becky.
  • Sara renews her commitment to inward princesshood despite poverty, draws recurring consolation from it and openly invokes it while resisting Minchin's demand for an apology.
  • Sara exercises the self-command required by her princess ideal when she resists answering mockery with contempt.
  • Sara sustains her practice of generous giving under severe deprivation, surrendering five buns to the still hungrier child and keeping only one.
  • Sara turns the available scraps into a royal banquet setting and accepts the role of princess presiding over it.
  • Sara extends her practice of princely generosity into a funded arrangement for feeding hungry children.

• Sara undertakes to keep Becky's unauthorized sleep from Miss Minchin and discreetly allows her to stay for cake.

• Sara promises to tell Becky the whole story and to try to meet her daily when she cleans the rooms.

  • Repeated visits during Becky's work and recurring stories and conversation put Sara's promised companionship into practice.

• Crewe is offered a partnership in his schoolfriend's diamond enterprise; Sara learns of the opportunity, while the business becomes a source of anxiety for him.

  • The enterprise ends in reported disaster: all Crewe's money is committed, his friend flees, and Crewe dies leaving Sara without a fortune.

• Sara seeks compact, satisfying food to relieve Becky's hunger and fatigue, finding small meat pies effective.

• Crewe and the school household prepare Sara's birthday with presents, a new doll, a decorated schoolroom, ceremonial present opening and a feast.

  • The ceremonial presentation and opening of presents occur, but Minchin orders the party stopped and its decorations removed after learning of Crewe's death and ruin.

• Sara accepts the forthcoming doll as her last and commits to treating it with respect.

  • Sara receives the Last Doll, but rejects it and requests its removal after Minchin claims ownership.

• Sara attempts to write poetry that meets her own standards.

• Crewe wants to settle the business and return to Sara.

  • Financial shock compounds Crewe's fever and he dies before he can return to Sara.

• Minchin turns Sara's financial dependence into compulsory service, threatening dismissal and interpreting her composure as defiance.

  • Compulsory service expands into teaching and domestic work under servants, with increasing demands, blame and subordinate treatment.
  • Sara learns that the children's misconduct will be blamed on her; repeated scolding and the risk of further punishment constrain even her reunion with Lottie.
  • Repeated errands, harsh treatment, inadequate shoes and the withholding of supper deepen the hardship of Sara's compulsory service.
  • Minchin boxes Sara's ears and demands an apology; Sara distinguishes potentially rude laughter from her right to think, and Minchin dismisses her from the room.
  • Repeated errands and Minchin's withholding of dinner leave Sara soaked, cold, hungry and exhausted, intensifying the consequences of her compulsory service.
  • Sara's dependence exposes her to restricted food, the destruction of her feast, threatened starvation and physical abuse.
  • Minchin renews her punitive demands and the cook intensifies her cruelty, but the apparent existence of a wealthy protector forces Minchin to relax Sara's service and restore her place in lessons.
  • Sara's restored fortune and protected home end Minchin's power to compel her service; Sara explicitly refuses to return.

• Minchin intends to withdraw Sara's former luxuries, send away her carriage and pony, and dismiss Mariette.

  • Mariette leaves, Sara loses her luxuries and sitting room, and her former room is reassigned; the carriage and pony are not addressed.
  • The disposal of Sara's valuable garments and confiscation of her desk enact the removal of her former possessions and privileges.

• Minchin treats Becky's loyalty and sympathy toward Sara as grounds for anger and threatens her with dismissal.

  • Discovery of Becky with Sara leads Minchin to strike her and turn the threat of dismissal into a declared intention for the morning.

• Becky offers to serve Sara after completing her own work, but Minchin refuses.

  • Despite Minchin's earlier refusal, Becky repeatedly helps Sara dress and signals that she is available at night.
  • Becky is designated Sara's attendant in Carrisford's household, making service to Sara possible beyond Minchin's control.

• Sara must confront her father's death and financial ruin while losing her room, possessions and privileged place at school.

  • Overwhelming grief continues amid attic discomfort, fear, material deprivation, loss of pupil status and increasing loneliness.
  • Sara's poverty becomes publicly visible and physically punishing, provoking shame and an emotional collapse; Indian furnishings revive homesickness and memories of her former life.
  • The account establishes that Crewe committed all his available money and died believing himself ruined, while revealing that Sara's investment has since become a fortune; Sara remains unaware and continues to grieve.
  • The inspection establishes the continuing severity of Sara's reduced circumstances: a hard mattress, inadequate bedding and a fireplace Ram has never seen lit.
  • Hunger, inadequate clothing and exhaustion reach a crisis, followed by real material relief from the anonymous transformation of her attic.
  • Continuing material support reverses Sara's deprivation, restores her health and clothing, and brings back some of her former school standing.
  • The financial ruin and dependent position are reversed, and Sara gains an explanation of her father's apparent losses. His death remains irreversible.

• Sara seeks to earn her living and asks to teach the younger children.

  • Sara undertakes supervision, teaching and domestic duties, tries to demonstrate that she earns her living, and learns garment mending.
  • Sara regularly teaches French, putting her proposed means of earning her living into continuing practice.
  • Sara completes a teaching task for the younger pupils, continuing to earn her living through instruction.

• Sara tries to win kinder treatment through willing work and prove she earns her living, but abandons the attempt when obedience brings greater demands and blame.

• Sara seeks to preserve her learning through solitary study after her formal instruction ends.

  • Borrowing Ermengarde's books gives Sara new reading material and a teaching arrangement through which to continue learning.
  • Sara receives books and permission to resume schoolroom lessons in her former seat.

• Minchin seeks to isolate Sara from the pupils so her friendships and accounts of mistreatment cannot influence them or their parents.

  • Sara's teaching keeps her in contact with the younger pupils, whose affectionate closeness and conversations sustain their attachment despite Minchin's intended isolation.
  • The pupils hear Sara explain her princess fantasy, and Jessie considers whether Sara might possess an unexpected distinction, showing that Sara continues to influence their perceptions.
  • Ermengarde learns of Sara's hunger despite the attempted isolation, but Minchin discovers the visits and forcibly separates the girls.
  • Fear of Sara's possible protector leads Minchin to readmit her to lessons among the pupils, weakening the enforced isolation.
  • Carmichael rejects Minchin's threat to prevent visits, while Sara maintains contact with Ermengarde.

• Sara resolves to endure hardship without complaint, imagining herself first in wartime service and then as a forgotten Bastille prisoner, with Minchin as jailer and Becky as a fellow prisoner.

  • Imagination helps Sara discover beauty in the attic, although its comfort fades when she is alone. The Bastille pretense becomes a practical ritual of solidarity through her coded exchanges with Becky.
  • Accumulated hunger, cold, scolding and humiliation overwhelm Sara's resolve to endure without complaint; her rage and sobbing surprise her once they subside.
  • Becky's abuse and the ruined feast overwhelm Sara's endurance; she loses the comfort of the imagined banquet and cannot sustain further pretending.
  • Belief in a caring secret friend and the anticipation of nightly comforts give Sara renewed strength to endure continuing mistreatment.

• Sara and Ermengarde each mistake the other's distress and withdrawal for rejection; their estrangement ends when Ermengarde visits and they explain themselves.

• Ermengarde proposes secret nighttime visits to hear Sara's invented stories, and Sara agrees.

  • Ermengarde carries out a nighttime visit, hears about Melchisedec and delights in Sara's prison imagining; Sara reminds her to return quietly to bed.
  • A nighttime visit enables storytelling, but Lavinia's report exposes the arrangement and Minchin ends the gathering and punishes Ermengarde.

• Sara befriends the attic rat, names him Melchisedec and regularly brings him scraps; he learns to trust her and comes when she calls.

  • Sara's intimacy with Melchisedec grows, and his visits extend to his mate and children.
  • Melchisedec emerges for his meal, continuing the established routine of trust and feeding.
  • Melchisedec's established trust in Sara and expectation of her food and gentle signals are reaffirmed, with a remaining crumb providing material evidence of her care.
  • Melchisedec comes out toward Sara, continuing their established trust.

• Sara's interest in the Large Family becomes reciprocal after Donald gives her his sixpence; the family watches for and discusses her, while Sara keeps the coin and grows increasingly fond of them.

  • Sara's affection for the Large Family continues, and Janet carries Donald's encounter with her into Carrisford's household.
  • The remembered charitable gift and retained sixpence continue to comfort Sara, and she shares that comfort with Ermengarde.
  • Janet cares for Sara and Mrs Carmichael helps her understand the discovery, turning the family's interest into direct support.
  • Members of the Large Family visit Sara for tea and share the full account of her adventures and benefactors.

• Being mistaken for a beggar wounds Sara's pride, but she accepts Donald's charity to spare his feelings.

• Sara befriends the sparrows, which gather at her call and provide companionship.

• Sara hopes the empty neighboring house will provide a friendly attic neighbor; its occupation and Indian furnishings awaken hope of an affinity with its inhabitants.

  • Sara finds a friendly connection with the neighboring household through its Indian servant, whose delight in her Hindustani establishes the affinity she hoped for.
  • Sara's hope for friendly neighbors develops into sympathy for Carrisford, while reports of her attic and circumstances increase his interest in her.
  • Sara's hope for friendly neighbors culminates in discovering her benefactor and being welcomed into his home.

• Carmichael assists the ill Carrisford as his lawyer, arranging his household and accompanying his arrival.

  • Carmichael's assistance extends to pursuing the missing child's adoptive family through the Moscow clue.
  • Carmichael's affection accompanies his continued assistance: he reports the failed lead, proposes searching London, recognizes Sara's circumstances and helps establish her identity.

• Sara and Ram Dass establish a friendly connection through her smile, their shared Hindustani and cooperation in recovering the monkey; he notices her poverty, and she learns that his master is ill.

  • Ram Dass reports Sara's bare attic to Carrisford, extending the consequences of their friendly encounter into his master's concern for her.
  • Ram Dass's friendly interest becomes sustained protective attention and practical preparation to relieve Sara's deprivation.
  • Sara returns the monkey to Ram Dass, whose request that she stay brings her into his master's household.
  • Sara learns Ram Dass helped provide her comforts, and he continues assisting her by reassuring Becky and conveying the arrangements.

• Sara permits Ram Dass to enter her attic to recover the escaped monkey, and he successfully retrieves it.

  • Ram Dass's retrospective report confirms the completed monkey visit and recovery.

• Sara develops an affectionate, sympathetic attachment to Carrisford, identifying his suffering with her father's; Carrisford's interest in Sara grows through Janet's and Ram Dass's accounts without either recognizing their connection.

  • Carrisford takes pleasure in accounts of Sara and begins contemplating making her imagined comforts real.
  • Sara again sees Carrisford as lonely and unhappy, sustaining her sympathetic attention to him.
  • Sara and Carrisford finally meet. Her account reveals that the child he has secretly helped is his friend's daughter, while Sara learns that he was her father's friend and has searched for her.
  • Their previously unrecognized connection becomes explicit; Sara embraces Carrisford as her loving benefactor, and he determines to give her a home.
  • Sara and Carrisford become exceptionally close; he asks to be Uncle Tom and delights in giving her surprises.

• Sara wishes to comfort Carrisford and care for him affectionately.

  • Finding Sara improves Carrisford's condition, and she returns to him with affectionate recognition.
  • Helping Sara relieves Carrisford's sadness, and their affectionate companionship accompanies his restored vitality.

• Sara's fortune is held by her neighboring benefactor-to-be, Carrisford, but Sara does not know it and Carrisford does not know that the nearby attic child is Crewe's daughter.

  • Carrisford, Carmichael and Ram Dass recognize Sara as Crewe's daughter, and Sara learns of Carrisford's connection to her father and the search. She has not yet been told about her recovered fortune.
  • Sara learns her neighbor supplied the comforts, Carrisford identifies her as Crewe's daughter, and her recovered fortune is recognized.

• Carrisford's illness, impaired memory and mistaken inference that Crewe's daughter attended school in Paris obstruct the search; the possible child's adoptive family has disappeared.

  • The Russian family's child is ruled out, the search turns toward London, and Sara's identification ends the uncertainty that obstructed finding her.

• Carrisford remains distressed by his flight from Crewe during their apparent ruin and by Crewe's death before the investment recovered.

• Carrisford seeks Crewe's daughter so that she can receive the fortune recovered from her father's mining investment.

  • After the Russian lead fails, Sara's account and her father's name establish that she is the daughter Carrisford has sought. Her receipt of the recovered fortune is not yet recorded.

• Carmichael intends to trace the Russian adoptive parents, following the Moscow clue and travelling there to continue the search.

  • Carmichael departs toward the station to pursue the search; Sara learns that his journey concerns a little girl without learning whom he seeks.
  • Carmichael traces the family in Moscow and obtains the information needed to eliminate its adopted child as Crewe's daughter.

• Sara seeks to relieve a child whose hunger exceeds her own, giving her five of six buns despite her own near-fainting hunger.

  • Sara learns that the child she fed is now well nourished and has a home and employment with Mrs. Brown.

• The baker woman responds generously to Sara's hunger and is deeply moved when she learns that Sara gave away almost all her buns.

  • Mrs. Brown remembers Sara's generosity, has repeatedly given bread because of it, and gladly agrees to her charitable proposal.

• Moved by Sara's generosity, the baker woman promises the beggar child bread whenever she needs it and invites her to return.

  • Anne accepts Mrs. Brown's invitation to return; the promised help grows into regular work and a home.

• Ram Dass, Carrisford and Carrisford's secretary prepare to realize Sara's imagined comforts by secretly furnishing her attic while she sleeps; Ram installs nails, the secretary inspects and records requirements, and Ram proposes passing supplies through another bearer.

  • The planned secret transformation is accomplished: Sara and then Becky discover real warmth, furnishings, bedding, clothes, books and supper.

• Sara does not know that Ram Dass watches over her, has overheard her imagined comforts and is preparing her attic's transformation with Carrisford and his secretary; their inspection is concealed by her absence and a lookout.

  • Secret observation continues and Sara discovers the benefaction, but the giver's identity and the preparations behind it remain concealed.
  • Secret visits and gifts continue without revealing their source. Sara chooses not to investigate, while Minchin learns only enough to suspect a wealthy protector.
  • Carrisford tells Carmichael that he and Ram Dass secretly devised help for Sara; Sara is not recorded as learning their role.
  • Mrs Carmichael explains Carrisford's and Ram Dass's responsibility for the attic comforts.

• Carrisford's secretary plans a separate, later visit to replace Sara's hard mattress, excluding that improvement from tonight's work.

  • The planned replacement of Sara's hard mattress is completed, with her old bedding transferred to Becky's bed.

• Sara will read Ermengarde's books and teach her their contents through memorable retellings; they agree to tell her father about the arrangement.

• Minchin accuses Becky of stealing food, strikes her, and then declares she will dismiss her after discovering the feast.

  • Further repeated physical mistreatment is reported, while Becky's prospective place with Sara offers an escape that has not yet occurred.

• Ermengarde and Sara arrange a secret feast with Ermengarde's hamper, including Becky; Minchin discovers it and removes the food before they can eat.

  • The account of the gathering establishes how Lavinia's report exposed the intended feast and brought punishment; the hamper-sharing plan remains thwarted.

• Ermengarde's secret companionship with Sara brings punishment from Minchin, who orders her to remain in bed and threatens to write to her father.

• Minchin intends to punish Sara by denying her every meal the following day.

  • Minchin explicitly renews the order that Sara receive no food, but leftover food and a fresh secret supper prevent the intended deprivation.

• Sara recognizes an anonymous giver as a caring friend after discovering the real comforts and message in her attic.

  • Repeated gifts confirm the unknown friend's sustained care, relieve Sara's loneliness, and allow her to express gratitude through a note she believes has been received.
  • New clothes extend the material care Sara receives from her unidentified benefactor.
  • Sara identifies her anonymous friend as Carrisford and embraces him with affection and gratitude.
  • Sara learns how the gifts were arranged and rejoices that her anonymous friend was Carrisford.

• Sara resolves to conceal the attic gifts from the school authorities, while allowing trusted friends to know if necessary.

  • Sara's departure ends the need to protect the attic arrangement from school authority, and its furnishings are scheduled for removal.

• Sara decides not to investigate her benefactor's identity and instead leaves a letter thanking the secret friend on behalf of herself and Becky.

  • The benefactor's identity is explained without Sara investigating, allowing her to thank and embrace him directly.

• Sara shelters the escaped monkey, whose trust in her affectionate care grows.

• Sara plans to shelter the monkey overnight and return him to the Indian gentleman the next day.

  • Sara brings the monkey to Carrisford's house and hands him back to Ram Dass.

• Carrisford arranges for Sara to live with him permanently, with Carmichael handling Minchin's claims.

  • Sara's settled life with Carrisford is established through their familial intimacy, her own room and possessions, and their outings together.

• Minchin attempts to reclaim Sara as a wealthy pupil, but Sara refuses and Carrisford and Carmichael defeat Minchin's claims and threats.

• Amelia persists in criticizing Minchin despite her anger, until Amelia's hysterical episode interrupts their confrontation.

• Ermengarde plans to visit Sara at Carrisford's house the following afternoon.

• Sara and Carrisford arrange for Becky to come to Carrisford's house and become Sara's attendant; Sara sends reassurance before Becky spends an unhappy night.

  • Becky is installed as Sara's attendant and accompanies her and Carrisford to the carriage.

• Ram Dass undertakes to move the attic furnishings back across the roof that night.

• Sara arranges to pay Mrs. Brown to feed hungry children, with Carrisford's support; Mrs. Brown agrees, and Anne volunteers to distribute the food.

• Mrs. Brown's aid to Anne develops into affection, a home and employment in her shop.

• Sara and Anne recognize one another and establish a friendship through Sara's handclasp and their shared understanding of hunger.

Places

London, Bombay, India, Select Seminary, Heaven, Bastille, Paris, Chateau d'If, Moscow, The pantry, Dover, France