Oriana had never liked him; and time only strengthened the prejudice she felt against him.  She knew that he hoped eventually to make her his wife—­or rather his slave—­for Coubitant was not a man to relax from any of the domestic tyranny of his race; and the more she saw of her ‘white brother,’ and the more she heard from him of the habits and manners of his countrymen, and of their treatment of their women, the more she felt the usual life of an Indian squaw to be intolerable.  Even the companionship of the young females of her own race became distasteful to her; for their ignorance, and utter want of civilization, struck painfully on her now partially cultivated and awakened mind, and made her feel ashamed of the coarseness of taste and manners occasionally displayed by her former friends and associates.  In the Christian captive alone had she found, since her mother’s death, a companion who could sympathize in her tastes and feelings, which had ever been above the standard of any others with whom she was acquainted.  And Henrich could do more than sympathize in her aspirations—­he could instruct her how they might be fully realized in the attainment of divine knowledge, and the experience of Christian love.  No wonder, then, that Henrich held already the first place in her heart and imagination, and was endowed by her lively fancy with every quality and every perfection, both of mind and body, that she could conceive to herself.

The simple-minded girl made no concealment of her preference for the young stranger, whom she regarded as a brother—­but a brother in every way immeasurably her superior—­and her father never checked her growing attachment.  The youth of both parties, the position that Henrich occupied in his family as his adopted son, and the difference of race and color, prevented him from even anticipating that a warmer sentiment than fraternal affection could arise between them; and he fully regarded his daughter as the future inmate and mistress of an Indian warrior’s lodge—­whether that of Coubitant or of some other brave, would, he considered, entirely depend on the comparative prowess in war and hunting, and the value of the presents that would be the offering of those who claimed her hand.  That she should exercise any choice in the matter never occurred to him; and, probably, had he foreseen that such would be the case, and that the choice would fill on the son of a stranger—­on the pale-faced captive whose father had slain her only brother—­he would have removed her from such dangerous influence.  But he thought not of such consequences resulting from the intimacy of Henrich and Oriana:  he only saw that his child was happy, and that she daily improved in grace and intelligence, and in the skilful and punctual performance of all her domestic duties; and he was well satisfied that he had not shed the blood of the Christian youth on the grave of his lost Tekoa.  His own esteem and affection for his adopted son also continued to increase; and, young as Henrich was, the influence of his superior cultivation of mind, and rectitude of principle, was felt even by the aged Chief, and caused him to treat him, at times, with a degree of respect that added bitterness to Coubitant’s malicious feelings.