March, whispering, "Now,
Hurry you can stop rowing. We have passed the stone on the bottom, and
mother's grave is near."

March ceased his efforts, immediately dropping the kedge and taking the
warp in his hand in order to check the scow. The Ark turned slowly round
under this restraint, and when it was quite stationary, Hetty was seen
at its stern, pointing into the water, the tears streaming from her
eyes, in ungovernable natural feeling. Judith had been present at the
interment of her mother, but she had never visited the spot since. The
neglect proceeded from no indifference to the memory of the deceased;
for she had loved her mother, and bitterly had she found occasion to
mourn her loss; but she was averse to the contemplation of death; and
there had been passages in her own life since the day of that interment
which increased this feeling, and rendered her, if possible, still more
reluctant to approach the spot that contained the remains of one whose
severe lessons of female morality and propriety had been deepened and
rendered doubly impressive by remorse for her own failings. With Hetty,
the case had been very different. To her simple and innocent mind, the
remembrance of her mother brought no other feeling than one of gentle
sorrow; a grief that is so often termed luxurious even, because it
associates with itself the images of excellence and the purity of a
better state of existence. For an entire summer, she had been in
the habit of repairing to the place after night-fall; and carefully
anchoring her canoe so as not to disturb the body, she would sit and
hold fancied conversations with the deceased, sing sweet hymns to the
evening air, and repeat the orisons that the being who now slumbered
below had taught her in infancy. Hetty had passed her happiest hours in
this indirect communion with the spirit of her mother; the wildness
of Indian traditions and Indian opinions, unconsciously to herself,
mingling with the Christian lore received in childhood. Once she had
even been so far influenced by the former as to have bethought her of
performing some of those physical rites at her mother's grave which the
redmen are known to observe; but the passing feeling had been obscured
by the steady, though mild light of Christianity, which never ceased
to burn in her gentle bosom. Now her emotions were merely the natural
outpourings of a daughter that wept for a mother whose love was
indelibly impressed on the heart, and w