"At a wigwam in Oneida, where he had been compelled to ask for such hospitality as it afforded, he was seized with the fever of the country that usually attacked strangers. For weeks and months he was nursed by an indian girl, famed among her people for her skill in such remedies as their native wilds supply. You know, that in the history of the early periods of all ages, we find the healing art assigned to women. You will remember, Ned, in your favorite old ballads, many a kill or cure, performed by cruel or tender leeches. "Whether it was the indian maid's skill in medicine, that prevailed over the disease at last, or her devoted kindness, it might be difficult to determine; probably, Bernard thought the latter; for though she was, as my narrator's tradition says, 'an uncouth maiden to look upon,' he declared his love to her, and asked her hand of her father. The father consented, but not till after some delay, nor till he had ascertained that Bernard's rank entitled him to wed the daughter of a distinguished chief. She was an only child too, and she was heir to enough land within this Oneida reservation, to make a principality. "The Frenchman understood how to manage it. His ties to his own country were broken. All his affections and interests were concentrated here. He has been a good husband and father--so indulgent as to permit his wife on ordinary occasions, to wear her indian dress, to which it seems she has a bigoted attachment. His children are well educated: and, Ned, our blacksmith thinks, that your heroine Felice, would be a perfect beauty, if she had such hair as your sister's, and the olive tinge could be washed out of her skin. "Bernard, since the late reverses in France, has returned there, and recovered an immense property which had been sequestered by Napoleon. "Last year his family received dispatches from him, by your 'chief,' Ned--who, if not in reality a chief, is the son of a distinguished sachem of the Seneca tribe, which is located some where on the shores of Lake Erie. The old Seneca chief was converted to the Romish religion, by a Catholic missionary, who persuaded him to resign his son into his hands, to be educated a priest. "It appears that neither European intercourse, nor the strict discipline of a catholic school, have overcome the young man's preference of the wild and lawless life of his tribe. As I said, on his return from France, he brought letters from Bernard to his family, and here he has played successfully the part of Othello the Moor, with this young Desdemona; and the blacksmith thinks that Bernard will play the enraged father to the life, as it has been his declared resolution from his daughter's birth, that she should not wed an indian.