Ermengarde

Ermengarde St. John is the daughter of a man who considers ignorance a disgrace, which has made her anxious and convinced she is stupid. She is not stupid; she is unable to remember facts unless someone tells her a story about them. Sara discovers this and tells her stories about everything. Ermengarde is suddenly able to remember things. This, in Sara's view, proves nothing about Ermengarde's intelligence and everything about the method.

Sara also articulates to Ermengarde, in this chapter, the principle she will return to throughout the novel: that her advantages — French, languages, books, the ability to learn quickly — are accidents. She happened to be born with a particular kind of mind and a father who cultivated it. This is not modesty for show; it is a genuine moral position. Lavinia has none of these advantages and is unkind anyway; Sara has all of them and could easily be insufferable. That she is not is the result of a distinction she has actually thought through.

Lottie Legh, the four-year-old baby of the school, attaches herself to Sara by the simple mechanism of crying until Sara agrees to be her mamma. Sara manages this with a patience and strategy that impresses even the older girls: she tells Lottie that real mammas would not want their children to cry, and that if Lottie cries, Sara will have to go away. Lottie stops crying. The management of Lottie becomes one of Sara's regular responsibilities, and the affection between them is real on both sides.