t
and take up my dirt, yesterday. She minded me this morning."

"She will be more scared before we speak to her," remarked the bread
girl. "Ver-r-y ugly issue shoes! She ought to wear a dragging dress to
hide them."

There was a burst of laughter, while the keen, black eyes of the entire
group were fixed upon Cordelia Running Bird's feet. She did not draw
them back nor lift her eyes, but suddenly her dusky face grew scarlet,
and there was a nervous trembling of her lips that moved persistently in
an attempted study of the lesson. She had heard the words, as the girls
intended she should. They were speaking in Dakota without fear of being
understood by the white mother, who was in the playroom passing pennies
for the missionary plate.

The white mother heard the laugh and stepped into the space between the
sliding doors, which were ajar. She saw the girls' resentment at a
glance, and that it was directed at Cordelia Running Bird. She was
troubled, but could not combat the feeling that had spread throughout
the school, to mar the peace and quiet of the Sabbath, which these
Indian girls were wont to keep in reverent spirit.

"She has bought another pair of shoes for Susie--stockings, too--not
black ones, like the little schoolgirls have to wear for best, but very
stylish brown ones," Hannah Straight Tree said. "She put them in her
trunk last night. I crept upstairs and watched her, for the children
said she had them in her pocket. The large and middle-sized girls must
not see them till the entertainment, but the little girls keep saying
they are like the ones the little white visitor that wore the dress that
was pink dim-i-ty, had on. Ver-ry white-minded shoes! She wants to
hire me to like her, if she does not wish to have Dolly in the Jack
Frost song with Susie, so she bought new hair ribbons at the store for
Dolly and Lucinda. She told the little girls because she knew they
would tell me. But Dolly and Lucinda shall not wear them. Very cotton
silk, of course."

The ringing of the bell for Sunday-school relieved Cordelia Running Bird
of the torment she was undergoing. Conversation was suspended, and the
girls put on their hoods and marched in a procession to the
school-house, guided by the teachers.

Cordelia had a trying hour in Sunday-school. The middle-sized girls,
her companions in the white mother's class, indulged in frequent
whispering at her expense and kept deep silence when she tried to lead