r to inform him how and when she first came to
live in this overgrown forest. She said, "I could not tell, but when I
was a child I lived in a cottage on a lake shore, where one could sit in
its vine-clad porch and look out upon the windings of its beautiful
shore and hear the fury of the waves amid the fearful storm. The Indians
came one sunny day, when I was sitting under the arbor over the door,
and killed my mother, robbed the house, and bore me away in their arms.
The next morning one of the Indians took me on his back, and in three or
four days they reached this place, and I was adopted into the chief's
family. My mother used me kindly whilst she lived. After ten years she
sickened and died. Since that time I have lived with the chief, my
father. I have planted these flowers in rows to imitate the shores of
the lake where I was born. That long half-moon curve you see was a wide,
open bay, and that short turn yonder was a bluff of rocks."

Esock Mayall listened with admiration to her story, and then replied,
"Would you go with me and walk the shores of that lake once more?"

That question seemed a spell that chained her tongue, whilst the crimson
flush faded from her cheek. In a few moments her young blood began to
course freely in her veins, and the flush of roses warmed her lovely
cheeks. She raised her eyes and looked Esock Mayall full in the face,
and appeared as lovely as a dream.

"Do you know where that lake is situated? My captors have always refused
to inform me. If you do, I will go with you cheerfully, and walk once
more upon its lovely shores. Twelve long years, in the dreams of
midnight, I have wandered on its shores, and its coves and bays have
appeared to me with the white swan with snowy sail and air of pride
floating upon its mirror waves; but there is a bitter mingled with the
sweet; in those dreams I see my mother pale in death, slain by my
captor's hands, and oh, my father, who was absent from his home, where
is he? When rosy morn blushed on the concave of the skies I always found
myself within the wigwam's prison-walls."

Esock Mayall told her frankly that he neither knew the name or locality
of the lake she described, but added, "If you would consent to be my
wife and go with me to my forest home, I will endeavor to learn from
your captors the name and locality, and take you back to the home of
your childhood, once more to ramble on the beautiful shores where you
had roamed in childhood's s