already been a wife and a
mother; and now, alas! she was a widow. Her grief had been passionate
at the last, and had burst forth in that one wild cry that had startled
Oriana's ear in the forest. But that was over now, and she seemed
resigned to her hard fate, and willing to endure it. Perhaps this was
for her infant's sake; and, perhaps, her sensibilities were blunted by
the life she had led, in common with the rest of her race and sex--a
life in which the best feelings and sympathies of our nature are almost
unknown. It was not until Oriana led her to speak of her past life, and
the home of her youth--now desolate and in ruins--that tears of natural
grief flowed from her eyes. Then she seemed roused to a full sense of
all she had lost, end broke out into mournful lamentations for her
murdered Lincoya, whose noble qualities and high lineage she eloquently
extolled; while she sadly contrasted her present lonely and desolate
position with her happiness as the squaw of so distinguished a warrior,
and so successful a hunter.

Oriana said all she could to console her; and assured her of her
protection and friendship, and of a home in her lodge when they
returned to their own country, where she should live as her sister, and
bring up her little Lincoya to emulate his father's courage and
virtues: and, ere long, the simple young savage again grew calm, said
lifted up her soft black eyes, and smiled gratefully at her new friend
and benefactor. She said she bad no wish to return to her own tribe,
for all her family and friends had been destroyed in the recent
massacre; and the village where she had spent such happy days was
reduced to ashes. She, therefore, was well content to remain with the
youthful Squaw-Sachem, to whose intercession she knew she owed her own
life and that of her child, and in whose service she professed her
willingness to live and die.

Her manner and appearance greatly interested Henrich, for they were
marked by much greater refinement than he had seen in any of the Indian
females, except Oriana. This was to be accounted for by her noble
birth; for in those days the Indian chieftains prided themselves on the
purity and nobility of their lineage; and no member of a Sachem's
family was allowed to marry one of an inferior race. A certain air of
dignity generally distinguished the privileged class, even among the
females; although their lives were not exempt from much of hardship and
servitude, and they we