Miskwa renewed the fire, and drawing closer to her mother;—“Miskwa always begs her mother that her path may not be far from her wigwam,—She has seen many years, and should rest. Her daughter will supply her with food.” “We hunger now,—when morning comes, will it bring forth food?” inquired Netnokwa. “It will,” said Miskwa;—“the Great Spirit will take care of his children. When morning comes, if Miskwa can find no game, she will break the ice, and catch the dory.” “Thou art good, my daughter. The Great Spirit will take care of his children who love him. Let us pray to him, and ask him to give us food in the morning. The pale face cannot live so long as we can without food.” “Be it as the Great Spirit wills,” said the captive, “but I had rather do without it than that you should go out such weather as this to seek it.” “He that does not seek, shall never find,” said Netnokwa; “the Great Spirit will not help those who do not help themselves.” She then knelt, and prayed. Some time was spent in prayer by Netnokwa, and then spreading their pukkwi, and kindling up the fire, they lay around it, and nestling up close to each other, slept away the night. What a contrast had a few short months exhibited in the fortunes of the captive;—one too so young, so beautiful, and so innocent that one would have deemed her well calculated to disarm even fate of its ire.—Yes, but a few short months had elapsed since she was in the possession of parents, of friends, and the comforts of life. They have passed, and she is an orphan, dwelling in the wilderness, and suffering with want. Yet it was not hunger, nor bodily suffering which caused her melancholy, but the loneliness of her situation, and the gloom which hung over the future, brought up and educated as she had been, and yet doomed to wear out her days in an Indian wigwam. For some time she slept not, but thought of the past. She was sad, and as the storm hurried howling around her little dwelling, she clung closer to Miskwa, and felt a sympathy, in the driving blast, whose notes touched a chord in unison with her own feelings, and even made her more sad;—yet it was the joy of sorrow! for she contrasted the present with the past, and her mind separating the sweet from the bitter, dwelt only on the brighter recollections of her earlier days.