ut when she held her lamp before the other, it seemed to her that the
picture never was so fresh before, and that the proud smile upon its lips
was more full of conscious triumph than she remembered it. A reflex,
doubtless, of her own thoughts, for she believed that the martyr was
weeping even in heaven over her lost descendant, and that the beauty,
changed to the nature of the malignant spiritual company with which she
had long consorted in the under-world, was pleasing herself with the
thought that Myrtle was in due time to bring her news from the Satanic
province overhead, where she herself had so long indulged in the
profligacy of embonpoint and loveliness.

The evening at the school-party was to terminate with some tableaux. The
girl who had suggested that Myrtle would look "stunning" or "gorgeous" or
"jolly," or whatever the expression was, as Pocahontas, was not far out
of the way, and it was so evident to the managing heads that she would
make a fine appearance in that character, that the "Rescue of Captain
John Smith" was specially got up to show her off.

Myrtle had sufficient reason to believe that there was a hint of Indian
blood in her veins. It was one of those family legends which some of the
members are a little proud of, and others are willing to leave
uninvestigated. But with Myrtle it was a fixed belief that she felt
perfectly distinct currents of her ancestral blood at intervals, and she
had sometimes thought there were instincts and vague recollections which
must have come from the old warriors and hunters and their dusky brides.
The Indians who visited the neighborhood recognized something of their
own race in her dark eyes, as the reader may remember they told the
persons who were searching after her. It had almost frightened her
sometimes to find how like a wild creature she felt when alone in the
woods. Her senses had much of that delicacy for which the red people are
noted, and she often thought she could follow the trail of an enemy, if
she wished to track one through the forest, as unerringly as if she were
a Pequot or a Mohegan.

It was a strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for
the part she was to take. Had she never worn that painted robe before?
Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon
her neck and arms? And could it be that the plume of eagle's feathers
with which they crowned her dark, fast-lengthening locks had never
shadow