It was, of course, the first time the Virginian had seen Mrs. Elmsley since the preceding evening, when, with Mrs. Headley, she had been a pained witness of the desolating grief she so deeply shared herself. The swollen eyelid and the pale cheek attested that little sleep had visited her eyes during the subsequent part of the night; and when she affectionately took the proffered hand of Ronayne, whose composedness she was greatly surprised and pleased to witness, there was a melancholy expression of sympathy in her glance that tried all the powers of self-possession of the latter. How different was that breakfast table from what it had been on former occasions! How often, both before and after their marriage, had Ronayne and his wife partaken of the hospitable board, with hearts light as gratified love could render them, and exhilarated by the witty tallies of the amiable hostess, who, full of life and gaiety herself, sought ever to render her more sedate friend as exuberant in spirit as herself. How graceful the manner in which she recommended her exquisitely-made coffee, her deliciously-dried bear and venison hams, the luxuriously-flavored and slightly-smoked white fish from the Superior and the Sault; and with what art she allured the appetite from one delicacy to another, until scarcely an article of food at her table was left untasted. And yet all this, not in a spirit of ostentatious display of her own aptitude in these somewhat sensual enjoyments, but from a desire, by the exercise of those little niceties of attention which insensibly win upon the heart, to please, to gratify--to make sensible that she sought to please and to gratify--those whom both herself and her husband so deeply regarded. The breakfast was now a hurried one. It had not been prepared with the usual care. The directing hand of the mistress seemed not to be visible--it was heavy as the hearts of those who now partook of it, and even the never failing claret, of which Elmsley compelled his friend to swallow several goblets, had lost more than half its power to exhilarate; for, oh! there was one of that once happy party gone for ever from their sight, and the solemn and restrained manner of each was sufficient evidence of the deep void her absence had created. It was a relief to all when Corporal Collins hurriedly appeared at the door and announced that the greater portion of the warriors of the Pottowatomies, with Winnebeg at their head, were now advancing towards the glacis, where a large awning, open at the sides, had been erected soon after the morning's parade. "Winnebeg at their head, did you say, Collins?" "Yes, sir, Winnebeg, and with him--for I know them as well--Wau-ban-see, Black Partridge, To-pee nee-be, Kee-po-tah, and that tall, scowling chief that never looks friendly, Pee-to-tum. They are all in their war dresses, and their young men as well."