Sara, a Princess: The Story of a Noble Girl

Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
A Princess she, though not by birth: Her title's from above, Her heritage the right of worth, Her empire that of love.
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 carefully 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.
As she passed directly from the stairway into the kitchen, or living- room, her father turned from the hopeless-seeming tangle of soiled and torn netting on the floor before him, and looked at her half wistfully from under the glazed brim of his wide hat.
Was you studyin', Sairay? Ye see, I've got into a bad sort o' mess here, an' we may git our orders fur the long fish any day.
That's all right, father! No, baby, sister can't take you now, as the little fellow on the floor crept to her feet and set up a wail; but her smile, and a replaced toy, silenced the cry, and brought back comfort and complaisance to the puckered little face.