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186 "Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful! Carlyle's 'French Revolution.' I have so wanted to read that!"

"I have n't," said Ermengarde. "And papa will be so cross if I don't. He 'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays. What shall I do?"

Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited flush on her cheeks.

"Look here," she cried, "if you 'll lend me these books, I 'll read them—and tell you everything that 's in them afterward—and I 'll tell it so that you will remember it, too."

"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?"

"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember what I tell them."

"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you 'll do that, and make me remember, I 'll—I 'll give you anything."

"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara. "I want your books—I want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved.

"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them—but I don't. I 'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."

Sara was opening one book after the other. "What are you going to tell your father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind.

"Oh, he need n't know," answered Ermengarde. "He 'll think I 've read them."