Here was a subject for one who could reflect; but the heart of Mary seemed to have died within her. "Oh yes," continued the Indian, patting her white shoulder gently with his strong brown hand, and pointing south; "he is gone to the abode of the Great Spirit, to the happy hunting-grounds, where the souls of all brave warriors go, and where they seem to live again." "Oh that I were with him." "Orono has no squaw now; but the Oneida girl who slept on his breast is there." "Orono," said the widow, touched by his tone, and gathering hope from his protection, "is a good warrior." "He is a brave one!" replied the Iroquois, proudly. "It is better to be good than brave; and you _are_ good." "Orono is grateful to the squaw of the white chief, and has given his promise to protect her; so the strongest and tallest braves of the Iroquois must respect that promise. My brothers say, Let the pale face die----" "She will not trouble you long," said Mary, weeping over her child, for which she had neither proper nurture nor little garments, nor even the rites of baptism. "Are we to perish, they cry, that pale faces may gather, and dig, and sow, on the sacred banks of the Horican? Are they sent here to inherit the home of the Indian, the hunting-ground of his fathers, and the great solemn barrows where their bones lie by the Oswego and the Mississippi, as if the Great Spirit loved them better than his children the Iroquois." From this day fever of mind and body--an illness for which she had neither nurse, physician, nor comforts around her--prostrated the faculties of the poor widow, for such she deemed herself. As each link in the chain of life is broken by death, we are united more closely to those which remain; but to poor Mary all seemed a hopeless blank. The _last link_ was a child, whose feeble life and doubtful future filled her with dismay. Now that Roderick was gone, her heart seemed to follow him. She clung with fonder affection to the world that was to come, and where she was to meet him; but her babe, could she selfishly forsake it? Her heart was sorely lacerated. Eternity seemed close--terribly _close_ to her; and her husband being there, instituted to her a more endearing tie between this world and that mysterious "bourne from whence no traveller returns." She had no terror of this journey, for he whom she loved with all the strength of her soul had gone before and awaited her there. At times she fancied that he chid her delay; she felt drawn towards that spirit-world by a chord of affection which made her now yearn for it, as before she had wept and yearned for her Highland home. But her babe--so innocent and so deserted--could she die and leave it among the Iroquois? How did Roderick die--where? Peacefully or in torture? Was he buried, or lying still unentombed?