and broad hat.

"I am Umatilla," said the chief, in answer to a question from the
teacher. His deep voice was like the mutter of a lion; he stood with
gentle dignity still looking wonderingly down into the girl's sweet,
solemn, and eager face.

A bystander said, "Poor child!" in a low, tremulous tone, followed by a
sigh.

The little one's hand, light, swift, and seeking, touched the Indian's
ringed ears and pressed again his long hair, while her teacher's swift
fingers said, "This strange man comes from a far-off land, from vast
mountains and forests away toward the western sea. The wind and sun have
made his face dark, and the long hair is a protection from the cold. He
is a chief."

Under her broad hat the child's exquisite mouth, with its dimpled
corners, remained calm but touchingly wistful. Her eyes were in shadow.
Her chin was a perfect oval, delicately beautiful, like the curving
lines of a peach, with the clear transparency of color of a flower's
chalice.

But the bystander said again, "Poor child!" as if a shudder of awe, of
wordless compassion and bitterness, shook him.

She was so beautiful, so gifted in spirit, to be thus shut in! Her
inclosing flesh was so fine and sweet, it seemed impossible it could be
an impassable, almost impenetrable wall.

He thought: She will soon be a woman, with all the vague, unutterable
longings and passions of the woman. Her lithe body will be as beautiful
as her soul, and the warm oval of her face will flash and flame with her
expanding, struggling life. Her caged soul will struggle for light and
companionship, blindly, vainly.

Life to her must remain a cruel fragment. Light and color she may not
miss; but wifehood, maternity, the touch of baby lips to her
breast--these her soul will grope for in dumb maternal desire. She must
inhabit her dark and soundless cavern alone.

Again she touched the chieftain's hair and earrings, and let her hand
drop down along his sleeve to his hard, brown hand. Then her hand fell
to her side with a resigned action.

As she walked away, a sweet smile of pleasure and gratitude flashed for
an instant across the exquisite curving line of her lips, and then the
sad and wistful repose of her face came back again as if her loneliness
had only been lightened, not warmed.

The young man drew a long breath of pain keen as a physical hurt. The
elderly gentleman said again, "Poor child!"

The Indian looked up again into the mighty dome soari