to the lake. I must tell you the truth, dear Hist, because you ask
me, but I should fall down and die in the woods, if he knew it!"

"Why he no ask you, himself?--Brave looking--why not bold speaking?
Young warrior ought to ask young girl, no make young girl speak first.
Mingo girls too shame for that."

This was said indignantly, and with the generous warmth a young female
of spirit would be apt to feel, at what she deemed an invasion of
her sex's most valued privilege. It had little influence on the
simple-minded, but also just-minded Hetty, who, though inherently
feminine in all her impulses, was much more alive to the workings of her
own heart, than to any of the usages with which convention has protected
the sensitiveness of her sex.

"Ask me what?' the startled girl demanded, with a suddenness that proved
how completely her fears had been aroused. 'Ask me, if I like him as
well as I do my own father! Oh! I hope he will never put such a question
to me, for I should have to answer, and that would kill me!"

"No--no--no kill, quite--almost," returned the other, laughing in spite
of herself. "Make blush come--make shame come too; but he no stay great
while; then feel happier than ever. Young warrior must tell young girl
he want to make wife, else never can live in his wigwam."

"Hurry don't want to marry me--nobody will ever want to marry me, Hist."

"How you can know? P'raps every body want to marry you, and by-and-bye,
tongue say what heart feel. Why nobody want to marry you?"

"I am not full witted, they say. Father often tells me this; and so does
Judith, sometimes, when she is vexed; but I shouldn't so much mind them,
as I did mother. She said so once and then she cried as if her heart
would break; and, so, I know I'm not full witted."

Hist gazed at the gentle, simple girl, for quite a minute without
speaking, and then the truth appeared to flash all at once on the
mind of the young Indian maid. Pity, reverence and tenderness seemed
struggling together in her breast, and then rising suddenly, she
indicated a wish to her companion that she would accompany her to the
camp, which was situated at no great distance. This unexpected change
from the precautions that Hist had previously manifested a desire to
use, in order to prevent being seen, to an open exposure of the person
of her friend, arose from the perfect conviction that no Indian would
harm a being whom the Great Spirit had disarmed, by depriving it