How the pakeha was about to end this speech may never be accurately known, for at that moment a loud cry of "Erena, Erena!" arose from the rear, and a girl, differing in several important respects from the young women around him, moved quietly through the crowd and stood among the foremost speakers. Roland at once recognized in the new-comer a personality altogether different from any which he had previously encountered in New Zealand. It was not alone that she was fairer than her dusky sisters; such complexions had he seen before, due to the intermixture of the races, by no means uncommon in the coast towns. Many of the young people of that blood were distinctly handsome in face and striking in figure. But there was something regal and statuesque in the bearing of this damsel which he had scarcely realized as of possibility in a Maori tribe. Her dress consisted of a more ornate and elaborate upper garment than the ordinary flax mat, or _puriri_, worn by the other women of the tribe. Later on, Massinger learned to know it as a _kaitaka_, or shawl, made of the finest flax, laboriously prepared, till it almost resembled silk in texture and appearance; a portion of it was dyed black, and worked in small diamond-shaped patterns, surmounted by long white fringes. It might almost have been woven in a loom, such was the precision with which the fine twisted flax threads crossed each other at intervals. The making of such a garment, chiefly worn by women of rank or distinction, required both skill and patience; a whole winter was not considered an unreasonable time to devote to its manufacture. Gracefully draped over one rounded shoulder, it fell in folds over a striped woollen undergarment reaching below the knees, permitting the free, graceful, and unstudied movements so characteristic of the untrammelled races of the earth. As this girl walked slowly forward, the Englishman thought she might have stood for a sculptor's model of a woodland nymph, as yet unconscious of the admiring glances of Phɶbus Apollo. "Who is this young woman?" said Roland to the guide. "What is her name, and how does she come to be with the natives?" "Her name is Erena Mannering," said he. "She belongs to the tribe, though she is a half-caste. Her father was a sea-captain, and her mother a chief's daughter. I have told her about you, and she wishes to speak." "But I cannot talk Maori. You will have to interpret what she says and what I say." The guide smiled. "She can speak English as well as we can. She was educated at a college in Wanganui, endowed for the teaching of Maoris and half-castes." Thus emboldened, Roland advanced, and begged to be favoured with her advice as to his making the journey to Rotomahana.