air, and wound about her head some strings of gay
beads. She had fastened a scarlet tanager's wing to her breast, now
covered by a bright-hued cotton gown once sent her from the Fort, and
for which she had discarded her dingy blanket. But the greatest
alteration of all was in the face itself, where a dawning happiness
brought out afresh all the good points of a former comeliness.

"Oh! Pretty! I have so many, many nice mammas. Are you another?"

"Yes. All your mother now. My Sun Maid. My Girl-Child. My papoose!"

"That is nice. But I'm hungry. Give me my breakfast, Other Mother.
Then I will go seek my bunny rabbit, that runned away, and my yellow
posies that went to sleep when I did. Did you put them to bed, too,
Other Mother?"

"There are many which shall wake for you, papoose," answered the
woman, promptly; for though she did not understand about the missing
blossoms, it was fortunate that she did both understand and speak the
language of her adopted daughter. Her dead husband had been the
tribe's interpreter, and both from him and from the Fort's chaplain
she had acquired considerable knowledge.

Until her widowhood and voluntary seclusion the Woman-Who-Mourns had
been a person of note at Muck-otey-pokee; and now by her guardianship
of this stranger white child she bade fair to again become such.

CHAPTER II.

TWO FOR BREAKFAST.

The dead son of the Woman-Who-Mourns had never been disobedient, and
small Kitty Briscoe had never obeyed anybody. She had laughed and
frolicked her way through all rules and over all obstacles with a
merry indifference that would have been insolent had it been less
innocent and charming. During her short life the orphan had heard no
voice but was full of tenderness, toward her at least; and every
babyish misdemeanor had been pardoned almost before it was committed,
by reason of her exceeding loveliness and overflowing affection. She
had so loved all that she feared none, and not one of the kind mothers
at the Fort had felt it her especial duty to discipline so sweet and
fearless a nature. By and by, when she grew older, why, of course, the
child must come under the yoke, like other children of that stern
generation; but for the present, what was she but an ignorant baby, a
motherless babe at that?

So that, on that first morning of their life together, it gave the
latest foster-mother a very decided shock when she directed:

"Take your bowl of suppawn and milk, and eat i