nsive, and
took her seat often in these lonesome haunts. From her baby name of
_Neenizu_, my dear life, she was called Leelinau, but she never
attained to much size, remaining very slender, but of the most pleasing
and sylph-like features, with very bright black eyes, and little feet.
Her mother often cautioned her of the danger of visiting these lonely
fairy haunts, and predicted, playfully, that she would one day be
carried off by the Pukwudjees, for they were very frolicsome,
mischievous and full of tricks.

To divert her mind from these recluse moods and tastes, she endeavored
to bring about an alliance with a neighboring forester, who, though
older than herself, had the reputation of being an excellent hunter,
and active man, and he had even creditably been on the war path, though
he had never brought home a scalp. To these suggestions Leelinau had
turned rather a deaf ear. She had imbibed ideas of a spiritual life and
existence, which she fancied could only be enjoyed in the Indian
elysium, and instructed as she was by the old story-tellers, she could
not do otherwise than deem the light and sprightly little men who made
the fairy footprints as emissaries from the _Happy Land_. For this
happy land she sighed and pined. Blood, and the taking of life, she
said, the Great Spirit did not approve, and it could never be agreeable
to minds of pure and spiritual moulds. And she longed to go to a region
where there was no weeping, no cares, and no deaths. If her parents
laughed at these notions as childish, her only resource was silence, or
she merely revealed here motions in her eyes. She was capable of the
deepest concealment, and locked up in her heart what she feared to
utter, or uttered to deceive. This proved her ruin.

At length, after a series of conversational interviews on the subject,
she announced her willingness to accede to the matrimonial proposals,
and the day was fixed for this purpose. She dressed herself in the
finest manner possible, putting flowers in her hair, and carrying a
bunch of wild flowers, mixed with tassels of the pine-tree in her hand.
One only request she made, which was to make a farewell visit to the
sacred grove of the fairies, before she visited the nuptial bower. This
was granted, on the evening of the proposed ceremony, while the
bridegroom and his friends gathered in her father's lodge, and
impatiently waited her return. But they waited in vain. Night came but
Leelina was never mor