ve, however. There was one beautiful
creature, the most beautiful of all the company, who sat apart from
the rest, said nothing with her tongue, but spoke a language with her
downcast eyes, which the smitten Nanticoke interpreted into that of
bashful love. While the rest were talking and laughing, displaying
their white teeth, and shaking their black hair over their polished
foreheads, he was thinking only of the silent woman, and contrasting
her modest and quiet deportment with the noisy and boisterous mirth
of her sisters. When she saw that the stranger bent his eyes a great
portion of the time on herself, and that their expression denoted the
same sentiment in him as filled her own bosom, she turned her face
away to fix them in listless gaze upon a distant object.

After the beautiful maidens had laughed, and chattered, and questioned,
as much as they would, they left the Nanticoke to enjoy his slumbers.
The silent maiden retired last, and the look which she gave him, as
she left the little chamber, did not quit his soul till more than half
of the hours of darkness had run through. The next morning he rose
early, and wandered about till he came to a little spring, which
rattled over a bed of pebbles, and fell into a cavern beneath; it was
a beautiful little spring, and its waters were cold and sweet, and as
clear as the sky. He had just placed himself by the side of this
little stream, when the silent maiden came thither also. The Nanticoke
sat hidden from observation by one of the pillars, while she whispered
her soft tale of love to the echoes of the cavern. She told them that
she loved the stranger with the black hair, and sunny eyes, and proud
mien; that she wished them to carry to the Great Spirit her wishes
that he should ask her to become his own--his companion--his wife.
More she would have said, but the Nanticoke caught her gently in his
arms, preventing her slight screams with the kiss of love. "Thou shalt
become my own--my companion--my wife," said he. "Lovely, and gentle,
and dearly beloved creature! I had feared thou hadst no tongue,
because to hear thee silent for a little while was something so new
and strange in thy sex. But thou hast found a tongue to tell the
echoes what thy bashful lips would not have dared tell me. I thank the
Great Spirit that I overheard thy soft confession; it has removed
those impediments which thy bashful timidity would else have
interposed to our immediate union. Lovely maid