Supposing her parents to be dead, he resolved to take the helpless little one to his wigwam, and to adopt her as his own. His home was at the distance of several days' journey from the Susquehanna, in a retired valley of the Alleghany mountains, and thither, through a dense forest, he bent his steps. The greater part of the way he carried the child, her white arm wound round his dusky neck, her fair head lying upon his shoulder; he dried her tears, he picked berries in the wood to refresh her, and strove to comfort her little heart, which was very heavy with sorrow. At last they arrived at his wigwam; his wife Ponawtan, or Wild Rose, ran out to meet her husband, and great was her wonder at the sight of his beautiful burden. He said to her:-- "Ponawtan, I have brought you home a child, as the Great Spirit has taken away our own, and sent them to the good hunting grounds, where forever they hunt the deer. Take good care of the child, for she is like a white water-lily, encircled by troubled waters: in our wigwam may she find rest and peace." Ponawtan, with a woman's tenderness, took into her arms the trembling, weeping child, who, with the quick instinct of childhood, soon learned that she was a friend. The Indian woman understood not even the few words of English by which Towandahoc made his kind intentions intelligible, but the language of the heart is a universal one, and in that she was a proficient. Well was it for little Emily--or Orikama, White Water-Lily, as she was henceforth called, that she had fallen into such good hands. Ponawtan was a kind, affectionate being, who had deeply mourned the loneliness of her cabin; and now that a child was given her, that a little motherless, homeless outcast was thrown upon her love, she was happy, and her sweet voice was again heard singing snatches of wild Indian melodies at the door of her hut, and about her work. For some weeks Orikama drooped her head, and her pale cheek looked indeed like the flower whose name had been given her; and Ponawtan grieved when she beheld her languid step, and the sad expression in her large speaking eyes, or when she found her weeping in a corner of the hut. But childhood is happily elastic in its feelings, and again the merry glance came back to her eye, and the little feet danced upon the green grass, and the soft baby voice caught up the Indian words she heard, and learned to call her kind protectors by the holy name of father and mother.