ember
your uncle, when he was a merry infant like you, and used to roll on
the grass in my sweet sister Edith's garden, and tear its gaudy
blossoms, as you do these flowers of the forest. Those were happy
days,' he added--and the bright smile of careless mirth changed to one
of pensive sadness--'yes; those were happy days that never can return.
If my sisters, and my playful little brother, yet live, they must be
changed indeed from what they were when last I saw their sweet faces on
that eventful evening, that fixed the course of my destiny. Edith must
now be a woman--a lovely woman, too; and little Ludovico a fine open-
hearted boy. And my beloved parents, too: O, that I knew they were
alive and well and that ere long they would see and bless my Oriana and
my child!'

And Henrich seated himself by the side of his young Indian wife, and
gazed in the face of his laughing boy, with an expression at once so
sad and sweet, that the child became silent and thoughtful too; and,
dropping the flowers that filled his little hands, he gently clasped
them as if in prayer, and looked long and searchingly into his father's
eyes.

'There, now you look exactly as my brother used to do when he knelt at
my mother's knee, and she taught him to lisp his evening prayer,'
exclaimed Henrich and his eyes glistened with emotion, as home, and all
its loved associations, rushed into his mind.

Oriana saw his sadness; and felt--as she often had done before on
similar occasions--a pang of painful regret, and even of jealousy,
towards those much-loved relatives whom her husband still so deeply
regretted. She laid her hand on his, and raising her large expressive
eyes to his now melancholy countenance, she gently said--

'Does Henrich still grieve that the red men stole him away from the
home of his childhood, and brought him to dwell among the forests? Is
not Oriana better to him than a sister, and are not the smiles of his
own Ludovico sweeter to his heart than even those of his little brother
used to be? And is not my father his father also? O Henrich--my own
Henrich'--she added, while she leaned her head on his shoulder, and
tears burst from her eyes, and chased each other down her clear olive
checks, to which deep emotion now gave a richer glow--'tell me, do you
wish to be set free from all the ties that bind you to our race, and
return to your own people, to dwell again with them; and, perhaps, to
lift the tomahawk, and east the spear aga