Remonstrance was useless; for even while Robert was speaking she moved away, and the echo of her footfall was scarcely heard, so rapid and cat-like was the tread with which she disappeared in the darkness of the woods. Robert looked thoughtfully after her for a time, and then, with something very like a half-smothered sigh, he turned away. Could that sigh, faint as it was, have fallen on the ear of the lone Indian girl, she would have felt fully repaid for her toil, but now a weight of sorrow lay upon her young heart, crushing each flower of gladness, even as she, with impatient tread, crushed beneath her feet the yellow leaves of autumn. CHAPTER X. ORIANNA’S FAITH. Long had the old square table, with its cloth of snowy whiteness and its load of eatables, waited the coming of the bridal party. Many times had Mrs. Wilder stood in the doorway, and strained her eyes to catch a sight of the expected company, and more than many times had old Dillah declared “that the corn cake which riz so nice would be fell as flat as a pewter platter, if they did not come along.” At length, from the top of a large old maple, in whose boughs several young Africans were safely ensconced, there came the joyful cry of “There, they’s comin’. That’s the new miss with the tail of her dress floppin’ round the horses’ heels. Jimminy! ain’t she a tall one!” and the youngsters dropped to the ground, and perched themselves, some on the fence and others on the gate, with eyes and mouth open to whatever might happen. In the doorway Mrs. Wilder received the bride, and the ready tears gushed forth as for the first time in her life she folded to her heart a daughter. From his stool in the corner, Charlie came, and throwing his arms around Marian’s neck, he said, “I know I shall love you, for you look so much like Orianna!” Old Dillah, who was pressing forward to offer her congratulations, was so much surprised that she forgot the bow and fine speech which, for more than a week, she had been practising. Her command of language, however, did not wholly desert her, for she said, somewhat warmly, “Clar for ’t, Master Charles, young miss won’t feel much sot up to be told she favours a black Injun.” George, too, was evidently piqued at having his bride likened to an Indian, but Robert came to Charlie’s relief, saying that “he had often noticed how wholly unlike an Indian were the features of Orianna, and that were her skin a few shades lighter, she would be far more beautiful than many pale-cheeked belles, with their golden curls and snowy brows.” The conversation now turned upon Orianna, and the strong affection which existed between her and Charlie, whom Robert teased unmercifully about his “dark-eyed ladye love.”