As soon as the little girl was old enough, she became the pupil of her father. Under his instruction, she could read the Latin authors with facility; and even his favorite Greek classics became playfully familiar as household words, although she really knew little about them. But the Christian ethics came home more closely to her woman's heart: their tender, pure, self-denying principles were more congenial to the truly feminine nature of the little Edith. The character and example of her mother were ever held up to her by Dinah. At night, after her little childish prayer, when she laid her head on her pillow, her last thought was of her mother. Ah, it is not necessary to be a Catholic, to believe in the intercession of saints. To a tender heart, a mother lost in infancy is the beautiful Madonna of the church; and the heart turns as instinctively to her as the devout Catholic turns to the holy mother and child. In all Edith's solitary rambles, her pensive thoughts sought her mother. There was a particular spot in the evening sky where she fancied the spirit of her mother to dwell; and there, in all her childish griefs, she sought sympathy, and turned her eye towards it in childlike devotion. CHAPTER VI. Where now the solemn shade, Verdure and gloom, where many branches meet; So grateful, when the noon of summer made The valleys sick with heat? Let in through all the trees, Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright: Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze, Twinkles like beams of light. BRYANT. A few days after the evening before mentioned, Edith and her father prepared for their little journey, to visit the young student. It was a brilliant morning in the very last of October. All journeys, at this time, were made on horseback: they were mounted, therefore, Mr. Grafton on a sedate old beast, that had served him many years, and Edith on the _petite fille_ of this venerable "ancestress,"--gentle, but scarcely out of its state of coltship. The Indians, at this time, were much feared, and the shortest excursions were never undertaken without fire-arms. Paul, as well as Mr. Grafton, was well armed, and served them as a guard. As soon as they had left their own village, their course was only a bridle-path through the forest; and the path was now so hidden with the fallen leaves, that it was sometimes indicated only by marks on the trees. The trees were almost stripped of their foliage, and the bright autumn sun, shining through the bare trunks, sparkled on the dew of the fallen leaves. It was the last smile of autumn. The cold had already commenced. No sound broke the intense stillness of the forest but the trampling of their horses' feet as they crushed the dry, withered foliage.