her head, look intently at her, as if
striving to interpret her words, then sadly shake her head, and utter
her words in her own plaintive language, but, alas! Catharine felt it
was to her as a sealed book.

She tried to recall some Indian words of familiar import, that she had
heard from the Indians when they came to her father's house, but in
vain; not the simplest phrase occurred to her, and she almost cried
with vexation at her own stupidity; neither was Hector or Louis more
fortunate in attempts at conversing with their guest.

At the end of three days, the fever began to abate; the restless eye
grew more steady in its gaze, the dark flush faded from the cheek,
leaving it of a grey ashy tint, not the hue of health, such as even the
swarthy Indian shows, but wan and pallid, her eyes bent mournfully on
the ground.

She would sit quiet and passive while Catharine bound up the long
tresses of her hair, and smoothed them with her hands and the small
wooden comb that Louis had cut for her use. Sometimes she would raise
her eyes to her new friend's face, with a quiet sad smile, and once she
took her hands within her own, and gently pressed them to her breast and
lips and forehead in token of gratitude, but she seldom gave utterance
to any words, and would remain with her eyes fixed vacantly on some
object which seemed unseen or to awaken no idea in her mind. At such
times the face of the young squaw wore a dreamy apathy of expression, or
rather it might with more propriety have been said, the absence of all
expression, almost as blank as that of an infant of a few weeks old.

How intently did Catharine study that face, and strive to read what was
passing within her mind! how did the lively intelligent Canadian girl,
the offspring of a more intellectual race, long to instruct her Indian
friend, to enlarge her mind by pointing out such things to her attention
as she herself took interest in! She would then repeat the name of the
object that she showed her several times over, and by degrees the young
squaw learned the names of all the familiar household articles about the
shanty, and could repeat them in her own soft plaintive tone; and when
she had learned a new word, and could pronounce it distinctly, she would
laugh, and a gleam of innocent joy and pleasure would lighten up her
fine dark eyes, generally so fixed and sad-looking.

It was Catharine's delight to teach her pupil to speak a language
familiar to her own e