"Ee! What ails the vainest girl in South Dakota? She will now be
wearing issue shoes to Sunday-school!" exclaimed a dormitory girl, among
a group of large and middle-sized pupils gathered in the music room,
adjoining the playroom, in Sunday-school attire.

Cordelia sat in a corner with her eyes upon her Sunday-school lesson.
Her feet were planted side by side as if with studied care.

"Just like she is very scared because the large and middle-sized girls
do not speak to her since yesterday. She is not sorry, only scared,"
said Hannah Straight Tree. "See, she sticks her feet out very far, so
we will see the shoes and think she is not vain; but we will not believe
her. She has found the dustpan, too, because she is so scared of me.
She bragged so much she made me cross, so I told her she must find it
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