“I am glad I sang ‘The Sweet By and By’ when she was so afraid,” said Emma Two Bears.

The girls were silent for a little, stirred by memories of the schoolmate who had passed into the life beyond.

Meantime the solitary girl in the snowy pasture continued her walk.

“I can wish I had not told Cordelia Running Bird that I would not sleep with anyone but her,” said Hannah.  “I am glad she is not in the middle dormitory now.”

“They put her in our dormitory so that she can go and tell the teachers if a little girl is sick, or cries,” remarked the prudent little girl, who had arrived upon the scene with several other children.  “The teachers say she wakes up easy, and is braver in the dark than any other girl.”

“Ee!  Cordelia Running Bird is a dress pattern for the other girls—­I mean a pattern!” Hannah cried.  “Cordelia is the bravest, and she has a white memory, so she has the longest piece.  Cordelia is polite.  She keeps her clothes so clean and does not tear them, so the missionary ladies send her prettier things, for the teachers write she is so nice.  The visitors always talk about Cordelia Running Bird very lots.  They do not think the girls are listening, but they are.”

“They should not listen.  That is stealing talk, the white mother says,” replied the prudent little girl.  “We like Cordelia Running Bird, for she does not scold us little girls and tell us we are in the way, as you do,” was the bold defense.  “We shall choose Susie in the games.”

“If the little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can pull their hairs when they are combing them,” was the appalling threat from Hannah Straight Tree.  “If they tell the teachers we can say their hairs were snarly and we could not help it.”

“Ee!  We shall not pull the little girls’ hairs and tell a lie,” said Emma Two Bears, rallying her honest principles.  “We can treat Cordelia Running Bird cross because she called us shovel-feeted, and is very vain, so we should punish her, but we will not be wicked.”

“I did not say we shall—­I said we can,” retracted Hannah, in confusion.

“The girls were very mean to walk whole-feet where she was scrubbing,” said the playroom girl, who knew from sad experience what Cordelia’s trials must have been.  “It makes me very cross because the little girls will not stay out or, sit still on the benches when I scrub the playroom, and they do not make big tracks, if they do walk whole-feet.”

“You can speak to her, because she could not call you shovel-feeted, for the white mother lets you always wear the mission shoes,” said Hannah Straight Tree, growing bold again.

“Because I have an onion—­no, a bunion—­on my foot.  The issue shoes would make it worse.  Just like there is no girl in school that does not hate to have the horrid whole-feet tracks on her wet floor.”

“I hate them—­some,” confessed a middle dormitory girl.