"Tokee! The white mother put it here. She always keeps it, and it means that I can look at it now."
Cordelia unwound the ribbon, opening the little book.
"Annie's Bible, and I never thought of her to-day! Just like I am forgetting her so fast. Here is Helen's letter. I shall read that first."
[Illustration: She read the little note slowly.]
She took a little white note from a dainty envelope and read it slowly, but with understanding that spoke of previous acquaintance with the words:
"Dear Annie: Will you let this little Bible be your friend and guide, as I have tried to have it for my friend and guide since I have been a King's Daughter? I have marked some verses I have learned and have recited in the meeting of our circle, and I wish that you might care to learn them and recite them in your meeting at the school.
"The King's Daughters in the Far East love to think about the Indian girls away out West, who are also members of our circle. Isn't it a sweet thought, Annie, that although so widely separated, we are all the children of one family in Christ, and are cared for by the same heavenly Father?
"Yours with loving interest,
"HELEN MERRIAM, Hartford, Conn.
"Aged 16."
"It came in Annie's mission box, and Helen was her unknown white friend," said Cordelia Running Bird, as she put the letter back into the envelope. "I shall next read Annie's letter." And she took another little missive from the Bible, written with a pencil on the tablet paper of the school, in wavering penmanship that showed the weakness of the writer's hand. Cordelia read:
"Dear Cordelia: Annie Running Bird will leave this Bible to Cordelia Running Bird, my sister, for I cannot carry it to heaven, and in heaven I shall not need to read the words that Jesus spoke on earth, for I shall hear him speak up there. But Cordelia will not just yet be bearing Jesus speak up there, and she will need to read this Bible and must mind just what it tells her. Dear Cordelia, you can have this Bible for your own when you are fourteen birthdays, so you will be old enough to take good care of it and read it very lots. But if you want to borrow it before it is your own, the white mother will please lend it to you, so you always give it back, and do not lose the letters and the pieces of my hairs that will be in it. I did not learn all of Helen's verses for the King's Daughters' meeting, for I got too sick to study, and my memory feels so queer. I have put a cross behind the ones I learned, and, dear Cordelia, wilt you try to learn them, too, and all the rest that Helen marked? The one I tried to think of most is St. Matthew, chapter 5:44.