Sara, a Princess

Sairay! Sairay! The high, petulant voice rose shrilly through the steep, narrow stairway, and seemed to pierce the ears of the young girl who sat under the low, sloping roof, nearly bent double over the book in her lap. She involuntarily raised both hands to her ears, as if the noise distressed her, then dropped them, straightened herself resolutely, and answered in a pleasant contralto, whose rich notes betokened power and repression, - "Well, mother?" "Your fayther's got to hev them nets mended right away, he says, an' my han's is in the dough. Be you at them books agin?" "Yes," said Sara; "but I'll come," rising with a sigh, and care-fully slipping a bit of paper between the leaves of her book, before she laid it on the rough board shelf at one side of the little garret room.