“Why, it’s much warmer,” said the Boy as they went by the cross; and Father Richmond greeted the half-dozen native boys, who were packing down the fresh snow under their broad shoes, laughing and shouting to one another as they made anew the familiar mission trails.

The door of the two-story house, on the opposite side of the settlement, was opened by Sister Winifred.

“Friends of ours from the White Camp below.”

She acknowledged the nameless introduction, smiling; but at the request that followed, “Ah, it is too bad that just to-day—­the Mother Superior—­she is too faint and weak to go about.  Will you see her, Father?”

“Yes, if you will show these strangers the school and laundry and—­”

“Oh, yes, I will show them.”

She led the way into the cheerful schoolroom, where big girls and little girls were sitting about, amusing themselves in the quiet of a long Sunday afternoon.  Several of the younger children ran to her as she came in, and stood holding fast to the folds of her black habit, staring up at the strangers, while she explained the kind of instruction given, the system, and the order reigning in each department.  Finally, she persuaded a little girl, only six years old, to take her dusky face out of the long flowing veil of the nun, and show how quickly she could read a sentence that Sister Winifred wrote on the blackboard.  Then others were called on, and gave examples of their accomplishments in easy arithmetic and spelling.  The children must have been very much bored with themselves that stormy Sunday, for they entered into the examination with a quite unnatural zest.

Two of the elder girls recited, and some specimens of penmanship and composition were shown.  The delicate complexion of the little nun flushed to a pretty wild-rose pink as these pupils of hers won the Colonel’s old fashioned compliments.

“And they are taught most particularly of all,” she hastened to say, “cooking, housekeeping, and sewing.”

Whereupon specimens of needlework were brought out and cast like pearls before the swine’s eyes of the ignorant men.  But they were impressed in their benighted way, and said so.

“And we teach them laundry-work.”  She led the way, with the children trooping after, to the washhouse.  “No, run back.  You’ll take cold.  Run back, and you shall sing for the strangers before they go.”

She smiled them away—­a happy-faced, clean little throng, striking contrast to the neglected, filthy children seen in the native villages.  As they were going into the laundry, Father Richmond came out of the house, and stopped to point out to the Colonel a snow-covered enclosure—­“the Sisters’ garden”—­and he told how marvellously, in the brief summer, some of the hardier vegetables flourished there.

“They spring up like magic at the edge of the snow-drifts, and they do not rest from their growing all night.  If the time is short, they have twice as much sunlight as with you.  They drink it in the whole summer night as well as all the day.  And over here is the Fathers’ garden.”  Talking still, he led the way towards a larger enclosure on the other side of the Cross.