d to sew so much, just like she would be getting up and
sewing in her sleep. So I shall ask her to trade work.

"But Hannah Straight Tree says she hates light blue, for it makes a
copper-colored Indian look much blacker; and she hates one tuck, and
there would have to be one, for the blue dress is too long for Dolly.
And it smuts some, too, and is not soft and fine. Hannah would not want
it. She would say Susie looked much nicer in the red dress, and Dolly
should not motion Jack Frost in the blue one."

Cordelia put the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings back into
the bag, and spread the red cashmere across her lap and smoothed it
lovingly.

"It feels so soft I like to rub it. Just the color of the one rose on
the white mother's window bush." She held it up, luxuriating in its warm
red glow. "Ver-ry sw-e-et and pretty--and the brown shoes and
stockings, too. I shall put them on the clean snow and look at them."

She spread the things on the hard white crust and viewed them with
increasing admiration. Suddenly she caught them up and hid them in her
apron, for the sight of them was far too tempting; then she locked her
hands together in her lap and sat so still a wood-mouse dared to leave
his hole beneath the log and frisk about her feet.

"The baby was so cross I could not play one bit the whole four weeks,"
she said at length, in supplicating tones. "Just like I earned the
dress so hard. I thought I did not care much for the Indian doll, but
my grandmother cannot make another, for she now has par-a-lay-sis in her
hands--the doctor says it is. And I sold the Indian doll to get the
brown shoes and stockings. Dolly has a round face, and her eyes are
pretty. Susie has a thin face, and she is a very little cross-eyed, so
she needs a prettier dress to look as nice as Dolly.

"But Lucinda cannot come to school if Dolly cannot, and she feels so
sad. If Dolly's father saw her looking very pretty in a red dress and a
brown shoes and stockings, just like he would feel so happier he would
let her come to school. Then Lucinda would be glad, and she would learn
the neat way, and they would grow Dolly more white-minded. The verse I
read yesterday was a King's Daughters' verse. Helen marked it--Annie,
too.

"What if Annie should be looking down from up there,"--pointing to a
newly glimmering star--"and speaking just like this: 'Dear Cordelia,
these words I tell you--" It is more blessed to give than to r