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56 the minnit I see you, sittin' there on the table, miss. You looked like her."

"I 've often thought," said Sara, in her reflecting voice, "that I should like to be a princess; I wonder what it feels like. I believe I will begin pretending I am one."

Becky stared at her admiringly, and, as before, did not understand her in the least. She watched her with a sort of adoration. Very soon Sara left her reflections and turned to her with a new question.

"Becky," she said, "were n't you listening to that story?"

"Yes, miss," confessed Becky, a little alarmed again. "I knowed I had n't orter, but it was that beautiful I—I could n't help it."

"I liked you to listen to it," said Sara. "If you tell stories, you like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to listen. I don't know why it is. Would you like to hear the rest?"

Becky lost her breath again.

"Me hear it?" she cried. "Like as if I was a pupil, miss! All about the Prince—and the little white Mer-babies swimming about laughing— with stars in their hair?"

Sara nodded.

"You have n't time to hear it now, I 'm afraid," she said; "but if you will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. It 's a lovely long one—and I 'm always putting new bits to it."