without waiting for
an answer--"We shall be ready to clear out this day week, mother, I do
believe; that is, if the hatchets are made in time to pack them."

"I hope they will be better than the last," said Mrs. Leigh. "It seems
to me a shameful sin to palm off on poor ignorant savages goods which we
should consider worthless for ourselves."

"Well, it's not over fair: but still, they are a sight better than they
ever had before. An old hoop is better than a deer's bone, as Ayacanora
knows,--eh?"

"I don't know anything about it," said she, who was always nettled at
the least allusion to her past wild life. "I am an English girl now, and
all that is gone--I forget it."

"Forget it?" said he, teasing her for want of something better to do.
"Should not you like to sail with us, now, and see the Indians in the
forests once again?"

"Sail with you?" and she looked up eagerly.

"There! I knew it! She would not be four-and-twenty hours ashore, but
she would be off into the woods again, bow in hand, like any runaway
nymph, and we should never see her more."

"It is false, bad man!" and she burst into violent tears, and hid her
face in Mrs. Leigh's lap.

"Amyas, Amyas, why do you tease the poor fatherless thing?"

"I was only jesting, I'm sure," said Amyas, like a repentant schoolboy.
"Don't cry now, don't cry, my child, see here," and he began fumbling in
his pockets; "see what I bought of a chapman in town to-day, for you, my
maid, indeed, I did."

And out he pulled some smart kerchief or other, which had taken his
sailor's fancy.

"Look at it now, blue, and crimson, and green, like any parrot!" and he
held it out.

She looked round sharply, snatched it out of his hand, and tore it to
shreds.

"I hate it, and I hate you!" and she sprang up and darted out of the
room.

"Oh, boy, boy!" said Mrs. Leigh, "will you kill that poor child? It
matters little for an old heart like mine, which has but one or two
chords left whole, how soon it be broken altogether; but a young heart
is one of God's precious treasures, Amyas, and suffers many a long pang
in the breaking; and woe to them who despise Christ's little ones!"

"Break your heart, mother?"

"Never mind my heart, dear son; yet how can you break it more surely
than by tormenting one whom I love, because she loves you?"

"Tut! play, mother, and maids' tempers. But how can I break your heart?
What have I done? Have I not given up going again to the West Indie