As they left the circle, Reginald’s eye encountered that of Mahéga, fixed with a scowling expression on himself and his fair companion; but he passed on without noticing the sullen and haughty chief, being resolved not to involve himself in any quarrel in her presence. They walked slowly towards the lodge of Tamenund, and it must be confessed that they did not take exactly the shortest path to it, Reginald leading the way, and Prairie–bird following his occasional deviations with marvellous acquiescence. The young man turned the conversation on the character of Paul Müller, knowing it to be a subject agreeable to Prairie–bird, and well calculated to give him an opportunity of listening to that voice which was already music to his ear; nor was he disappointed, for she spoke of him with all the warmth of the most affectionate regard; and the expression of her feelings imparted such eloquence to her tongue and to her beaming eyes, that Reginald looked and listened in enraptured silence. As they drew near her tent, she suddenly checked herself, and looking up in his face with an archness that was irresistible, said, “Pray pardon me, I have been talking all this time, when I ought to have been listening to you, who are so much wiser than myself.” “Say not so,” replied Reginald, with an earnestness that he attempted not to conceal: “say not so, I only regret that we have already reached your tent, for I should never be weary of listening to your voice.” Prairie–bird replied with that ingenuous simplicity peculiar to her: “I am glad to hear you say so, for I know you speak the truth, and it makes me very happy to give you pleasure. Now I must go into my tent.” So saying she held out her hand to him, and nothing but the presence of several Indians loitering near prevented his obeying the impulse which prompted him to press it to his lips. Checking it by an effort of prudence, he withdrew into the lodge of Tamenund, and mused on the qualities of this extraordinary child of the wilderness,—her beauty, her grace, her dignity, and, above all, that guileless simplicity that distinguished her beyond all that he had ever seen; in short, he mused so long on the subject that we will leave him to his meditations, as we fear it must be confessed that he was almost, if not quite, “in love;” and the reflections of parties so circumstanced, are rarely interesting to others.