The sound of a sweet-toned bell told us that we must not stay longer, and together we followed the path from the Flat Rock up to the academy door.  And all the way was like the ways of Paradise to me, for I was in the peach-blossom moon of my own life.

X

THE HANDS THAT CLING

The hands that take
No weight from your sad cross, oh, lighter far
It were but for the burden that they bring! 
God only knows what hind’ring things they are—­
The hands that cling. 
—­ESTHER M. CLARK

The next morning three of us waited in the stage before the door of St. Ann’s Academy.  A thin-faced nun, who was called Sister Anita, sat beside Eloise St. Vrain, her snowy head-dress, with her black veil and somber garments, contrasting sharply with the silver-gray hat and traveling costume of her companion.  Hints of pink-satin linings to coat-collar and pocket-flaps, and the pink facing of the broad hat-brim, seemed borrowed from the silver and pink of misty morning skies, with the golden hair catching the glint of all the early sunbeams.  There was a tenderness in the bright face, the sadness which parting puts temporarily into young countenances.  The girl looked lovingly at the church, and St. Ann’s, and the green fields reaching up to the edge of the mission premises.

As we waited, Mother Bridget and Little Blue Flower came slowly out of the academy door.  The good mother’s arm was around the Indian girl, and her eyes filled with tears as she looked down affectionately at the dark face.

Little Blue Flower, true to her heritage, gave no sign of grief save for the burning light in her big, dry eyes.  She listened silently to Mother Bridget’s parting words of advice and submitted without response to the embrace and gentle good-by kiss on her brown forehead.

The good woman gazed into my face with penetrating eyes, as if to measure my trustworthiness.

“You will see that no harm comes to my little Po-a-be.  The wolves of the forest are not the only danger for the unprotected lambs,” she said, earnestly.

“I’ll do my best, Mother Bridget,” I responded, feeling a swelling pride in my double charge.

Mother Bridget patted Eloise’s hand and turned away.  She loved all of her girls, but her heart went out most to the Indian maidens whom she led toward her civilization and her sacred creed.

As she turned away, the priest who was to go with us came out of the church door to the stage.

Little Blue Flower sat with the other two women, facing us, her dark-green dress with her rich coloring making as strong a contrast as the nun’s black robe against the pink-touched silver-gray gown.  And the Indian face, strong, impenetrable, with a faintly feminine softening of the racial features, and the luminous black eyes, gave setting to the pure Saxon type of her companion.