We had now reached the very brink of the foaming precipice, when my eye caught a narrow streak of blue water, which evidently descended in a gradual slope. I directed the canoe toward it, and she went down, plunging, I thought, entirely under; but she rose again filled with water, but still afloat. I threw my hat to Mary; and, whilst I kept the canoe steady in her course with one hand, I seized my hat in the other and commenced bailing. In a few minutes all danger of sinking was removed. We had now a free course before us, and an impassible barrier (so it was deemed) between us and our pursuers. We felt that we were safe;—all but Luten; to whom our danger and our safety seemed equally indifferent. His thoughts were far away in the land of dreams, where he had so long dwelt, and from which he would not yet depart. We spoke to him, but he made no answer. At length his head began to sink slowly down, and Mary hastened to support it. An ashy paleness now came over his features; his breathing grew short and difficult, and his mutterings became inaudible; except once, when the name of Tamaque trembled on his lips. Then his eyes became fixed; his lips ceased to move; his hand dropped heavily down at his side; and now,—the hot tears that rain from the eyes of his dutiful child fall on the brow of death. It was now near sundown; and when we reached the nearest white settlement it was near morning. There we buried Luten; and his daughter being now an orphan, and without a protector in the world, why, of course,—but I need not relate what followed. Suffice it to say that I was no longer jealous of Tamaque, but even felt a pang of regret when I heard, soon after, that he had fallen in battle. * * * * * THE RECONCILIATION. BY MISS L. VIRGINIA SMITH. The midnight shadows deepen on, the earth is still and lone, And starry lamps in heaven’s blue hall are fading one by one, For cold gray clouds wreathe o’er them like a dim and misty veil, And through their foldings peers the moon—a spirit wan and pale. As far away the gentle breeze is sighing mournfully It seems a murmur from the shore of olden memory, And while its cadence floats afar _thy voice_ I seem to hear— Like music in some troubled dream it steals upon my ear. My heart beats faster as the sound fades out upon the night, And pants to drink again that tone of rapture and delight; At such an hour it cannot deem that voice is cold and strange, In such an hour it will forget that hearts like thine can change. No—never, it shall _not_ be so—the thought is burning pain, Which like the levin’s blighting fire comes crushing through my brain; It cannot be our friendship’s bright and glowing dream is o’er, It must not be that we _shall meet_ as we _have met_ no more.