tless
quills, and endless stitches of colored moosehair. From his small,
neat moccasins to his jet black hair tipped with an eagle plume he
was every inch a man, a gentleman, a warrior.

But he was approaching her with the same ease with which he wore
his ordinary "white" clothes--garments, whether buckskin or
broadcloth, seemed to make but slight impression on him.

"Miss Bestman," he said, "I should like you to meet my mother and
father. They are here, and are old friends of your sister and Mr.
Evans. My mother does not speak English, but she knows you are my
friend."

And presently Lydia found herself shaking hands with the elder
chief, speaker of the council, who spoke English rather well, and
with a little dark woman folded within a "broadcloth" and wearing
the leggings, moccasins and short dress of her people. A curious
feeling of shyness overcame the girl as her hand met that of
George Mansion's mother, who herself was the most retiring, most
thoroughly old-fashioned woman of her tribe. But Lydia felt that
she was in the presence of one whom the young chief held far and
away as above himself, as above her, as the best and greatest woman
of his world; his very manner revealed it, and Lydia honored him
within her heart at that moment more than she had ever done
before.

But Chief George Mansion's mother, small and silent through long
habit and custom, had acquired a certain masterful dignity of her
own, for within her slender brown fingers she held a power that no
man of her nation could wrest from her. She was "Chief Matron" of
her entire blood relations, and commanded the enviable position
of being the one and only person, man or woman, who could appoint
a chief to fill the vacancy of one of the great Mohawk law-makers
whose seat in Council had been left vacant when the voice of the
Great Spirit called him to the happy hunting grounds. Lydia had
heard of this national honor which was the right and title of this
frail little moccasined Indian woman with whom she was shaking
hands, and the thought flashed rapidly through her girlish mind:
"Suppose some _one_ lady in England had the marvellous power of
appointing who the member should be in the British House of Lords
or Commons. _Wouldn't_ Great Britain honor and tremble before her?"

And here was Chief George Mansion's silent, unpretentious little
mother possessing all this power among her people, and she, Lydia
Bestman, was shaking hands with her! It seeme