lf?"

A conscious blush overspread the pale young face, for Antoinette
accompanied the question with a wistful enquiring look, that seemed to
reach to her very heart.

"O nothing, my very good, penetrating friend; please go on with your
story. Was your mother happy?" she asked with a kind of nervous
haste, as if to compel an immediate compliance with her request.

"I can not say," said Antoinette very obligingly relieving the
embarrassment she had occasioned, "I should think she must have been
happy, though, for I believe her short life was a very useful one. She
died at my birth having been a wife but one year. During that time,
she had by many acts of kindness greatly endeared herself to the
savages, and the young Indian woman, who had assisted her in nursing
brother Jim, for the love she bore my mother, reared her little
daughter with unusually tender care. My father survived her loss but a
few weeks, and then brother Jim and myself were thrown entirely upon
the care of our kind nurse. My mother had taught her to read and she
in turn imparted such instruction to us as she had received, or rather
I should say her pains were mostly bestowed upon me, for I was her
pet.

Brother Jim grew up like the savages around him, only, if possible,
more vindictive and revengeful in his nature. I was the only being
for whom he seemed to entertain the least affection, and he certainly
lavished upon me wonderful tenderness and love. In his early youth he
gathered for me the rarest flowers, and, as he grew older, he brought
me game and the choicest fruits, and seemed never so happy as when
promoting my comfort. For my amusement he brought me a violin from the
distant settlement of Pembinaw, and at length, gratified my curiosity
by taking me with him in one of his frequent visits thither. While
there my fair skin attracted the attention of a missionary's family,
and as brother Jim was rather proud of my parentage, they readily
elicited a correct account of my birth from him, and by appealing to
his pride, at length wrung from him a reluctant consent to place me
for a time under their tutorage, where, beside making rapid progress,
I cultivated my naturally correct taste for music. Under their
hospitable roof, amid the refinements and courtisies of civilized life
I spent many happy months."

"At length the last painful illness of my faithful nurse, who had
never ceased to mourn my absence, recalled me to her. After her death
I was