with an innate delicacy,
seemed to bestow all their thoughts on the obsequies of the stranger
maiden.

A signal was given, by one of the elder chiefs, to the women who crowded
that part of the circle near which the body of Cora lay. Obedient to
the sign, the girls raised the bier to the elevation of their heads,
and advanced with slow and regulated steps, chanting, as they proceeded,
another wailing song in praise of the deceased. Gamut, who had been a
close observer of rites he deemed so heathenish, now bent his head over
the shoulder of the unconscious father, whispering:

"They move with the remains of thy child; shall we not follow, and see
them interred with Christian burial?"

Munro started, as if the last trumpet had sounded in his ear, and
bestowing one anxious and hurried glance around him, he arose and
followed in the simple train, with the mien of a soldier, but bearing
the full burden of a parent's suffering. His friends pressed around him
with a sorrow that was too strong to be termed sympathy--even the young
Frenchman joining in the procession, with the air of a man who was
sensibly touched at the early and melancholy fate of one so lovely. But
when the last and humblest female of the tribe had joined in the wild
and yet ordered array, the men of the Lenape contracted their circle,
and formed again around the person of Uncas, as silent, as grave, and as
motionless as before.

The place which had been chosen for the grave of Cora was a little
knoll, where a cluster of young and healthful pines had taken root,
forming of themselves a melancholy and appropriate shade over the spot.
On reaching it the girls deposited their burden, and continued for many
minutes waiting, with characteristic patience, and native timidity, for
some evidence that they whose feelings were most concerned were content
with the arrangement. At length the scout, who alone understood their
habits, said, in their own language:

"My daughters have done well; the white men thank them."

Satisfied with this testimony in their favor, the girls proceeded
to deposit the body in a shell, ingeniously, and not inelegantly,
fabricated of the bark of the birch; after which they lowered it into
its dark and final abode. The ceremony of covering the remains, and
concealing the marks of the fresh earth, by leaves and other natural and
customary objects, was conducted with the same simple and silent forms.
But when the labors of the kind beings