"Make them love you."
"How?"
"Say nevertheless to them."
"Well, Gretchen, you are a good girl, and I am sorry for the hard things that I have said. I do not feel that I have shown just the right spirit toward Benjamin. But he has said that he will not do me any harm, for the sake of his master, and I am willin' to give up my will for my Master. It is those that give up their desires that have their desires in this world, and anybody who does an injury to another makes for himself a judgment-day of some sort. You may tell Benjamin that I am real sorry for bein' hard to him, and that, if he will come over and see me, I'll give him a carved pipe that husband made. Now, Gretchen, you may go, and I'll sit down and think a spell. I'll be dreadful lonely when you're gone."
Gretchen kissed her foster-mother at the door, and said:
"Your new spirit, mother, will make us both so happy in the future! We'll work together. What the master teaches me, I'll teach you."
"What—books?"
"Yes."
"O Gretchen, your heart is real good! But see here—my hair is gray. Oh, I am sorry—what a woman I might have been!"
Gretchen lay down in the lodge that night beside the dusky wife of the old chief. The folds of the tent were open, and the cool winds came in from the Columbia, under the dim light of the moon and stars.