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36 Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara. Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the school. She had led because she was capable of making herself extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader, too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because she never did.

"There 's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best friend" by saying honestly,—"she 's never 'grand' about herself the least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I could n't help being—just a little—if I had so many fine things and was made such a fuss over. It 's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off when parents come."

"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing-room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her accent is so perfect.' She did n't learn her French at the Seminary, at any rate. And there 's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says herself she did n't learn it at all. She just picked