‘Ah!  Ludovico!’ said the happy young father, as he fondly kissed the child, whose azure eyes, and long black eyelashes and curling raven hair, showed his descent both from the fair race of Britain, and America’s wild wandering children.  ’Ah, Ludovico! how well I remember your uncle, when he was a merry infant like you, and used to roll on the grass in my sweet sister Edith’s garden, and tear its gaudy blossoms, as you do these flowers of the forest.  Those were happy days,’ he added—­and the bright smile of careless mirth changed to one of pensive sadness—­’yes; those were happy days that never can return.  If my sisters, and my playful little brother, yet live, they must be changed indeed from what they were when last I saw their sweet faces on that eventful evening, that fixed the course of my destiny.  Edith must now be a woman—­a lovely woman, too; and little Ludovico a fine open-hearted boy.  And my beloved parents, too:  O, that I knew they were alive and well and that ere long they would see and bless my Oriana and my child!’

And Henrich seated himself by the side of his young Indian wife, and gazed in the face of his laughing boy, with an expression at once so sad and sweet, that the child became silent and thoughtful too; and, dropping the flowers that filled his little hands, he gently clasped them as if in prayer, and looked long and searchingly into his father’s eyes.

’There, now you look exactly as my brother used to do when he knelt at my mother’s knee, and she taught him to lisp his evening prayer,’ exclaimed Henrich and his eyes glistened with emotion, as home, and all its loved associations, rushed into his mind.

Oriana saw his sadness; and felt—­as she often had done before on similar occasions—­a pang of painful regret, and even of jealousy, towards those much-loved relatives whom her husband still so deeply regretted.  She laid her hand on his, and raising her large expressive eyes to his now melancholy countenance, she gently said—­

’Does Henrich still grieve that the red men stole him away from the home of his childhood, and brought him to dwell among the forests?  Is not Oriana better to him than a sister, and are not the smiles of his own Ludovico sweeter to his heart than even those of his little brother used to be?  And is not my father his father also?  O Henrich—­my own Henrich’—­she added, while she leaned her head on his shoulder, and tears burst from her eyes, and chased each other down her clear olive checks, to which deep emotion now gave a richer glow—­’tell me, do you wish to be set free from all the ties that bind you to our race, and return to your own people, to dwell again with them; and, perhaps, to lift the tomahawk, and east the spear against those who have loved you, and cherished you so fondly?  Often have you told me that your Indian wife and child are dearer to you than all that you have left behind you at New Plymouth.  But tell it to me again!  Let me hear you say again that you are happy here, and will never desert us; for when I see that sorrowful look in your dear eyes, and remember all you have lost, and still are losing, to live in a wilderness with wild and savage men, my heart misgives me; and I feel that you were never made for such a life, and that your love is far too precious to be given for ever to an Indian girl.’