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28 "You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully.

Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and, tucking up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees.

"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she answered. "You could speak it if you had always heard it."

"Oh, no, I could n't," said Ermengarde. "I never could speak it!"

"Why?" inquired Sara, curiously.

Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wabbled.

"You heard me just now," she said. "I 'm always like that. I can't say the words. They 're so queer."

She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice:

"You are clever, are n't you?"

Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings and the sooty branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it said very often that she was "clever," and she wondered if she was,—and if she was, how it had happened.

"I don't know," she said. "I can't tell." Then, seeing a mournful look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the subject.

"Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired.

"Who is Emily?" Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done.