The young woman stepped forward and looked down upon the waters below her for some time, and then murmured: “They are now, as in years past, above and below—the glorious constellations shining on, and year after year returning, with all their train rich in their lustre, and surveying themselves in the waters beneath. But _we_ change. Year after year passes, and my fathers’ race, if they appear at all, present themselves in diminished numbers and in wasting forms. The foot of the white man is on the soil, and he treats us as he does the forest trees. Where he finds our race convenient, he leaves them to perish for want of communion with their like; where he needs their lands, he strikes them down as cumberers of the ground; and I, who love the race—_I_ dwell among the pale faces, in peace; nay, I dwell among them of choice. I love their people, and I reverence the precepts by which some of them are governed—by which all profess to be guided. Oh, spirit of my fathers! must all pass away like the wreaths of mountain mist, and, as they fall, shall it be the disgrace of their name that vice, and not vengeance, swept them from the earth? “Oh, what is this new principle which the whites have infused into my soul—the means and condition of future happiness? What is it that bids me forbear the wish that I was a man—a chief among my fathers’ people, that I might chase the intruder from our hunting-grounds, and restore to our nation the land which was purchased by trinkets and baubles, costless to the whites and useless to the red men? What is that principle that _bids_ me, nay _makes_ me, pray for the good of the whites around me, and look to the destruction of my father’s race as a means of that good? “I cannot tell. And the teachings of the whites concerning the requirements of their own religion, become dark and confused when they attempt to reconcile their practice with their precepts; at least, those who teach most do most confound. But Father Harris, who has little to say, how good are all his _deeds_! how like the shining of those stars upon the water is his benevolence to my race! beautiful in itself, and reflected in the hearts of the red men with constant lustre. Oh, if all were like him! but then—” “Then what, Dahona?” The interruption was caused by a young man who had followed the speaker to a place of frequent resort. “Then what, Dahona?”