the incidents connected with them; and, pointing out the spots on which their uncle Charles and their aunt Clara had fallen victims to the terrible hatred of Wacousta, for their grandfather, detailed the horrors of those days with a rude fidelity of coloring, that brought dismay and indignation to the hearts of their wondering and youthful auditors.  On these occasions, Isabella became the depository of all that they had gleaned.  To her they confided, under the same pledge of secrecy which had been exacted from themselves, every circumstance of horror connected with those days; nor were they satisfied until they had shewn her those scenes with which so many dreadful recollections were associated.  On one naturally of a melancholy temperament, these oft recurring visits could not fail to produce a deep effect; and insensibly that gloom of disposition, which might have yielded to the influence of years and circumstances, was more and more confirmed by the darkness of the imagery on which it reposed.  Had she been permitted to disclose to her kind mother all that she had heard and known on the subject, the reciprocation of their sympathies might have relieved her heart, and partially dissipated the phantasms that her knowledge of those events had conjured up; but this her brothers had positively prohibited, alleging, as powerful reasons, not merely that the men who had confided in their promise, would be severely taken to task by their father, but also that it could only tend to grieve their mother unnecessarily, and to re-open wounds that were nearly closed.

Thus was the melancholy of Isabella fed by the very silence in which she was compelled to indulge.  Often was her pillow wetted with tears, as she passed in review the several fearful incidents connected with the tale in which her brothers had so deeply interested her, and she would have given worlds at those moments, had they been hers to bestow, to recal to life and animation, the beloved but unfortunate uncle and aunt, to whose fate, her brothers assured her, even their veteran friends never alluded without sorrow.  Often, too, did she dwell on the share her own fond mother had borne in those transactions, and the anguish which must have pierced her heart, when first apprized of the loss of her, whom, she had even then loved with all a mother’s love.  Nay, more than once, while gazing on the face of the former, her inmost soul given up to the recollection of all she had endured, first at Michilimackinac, and afterwards at Detroit, had she unconsciously suffered the tears to course down her cheeks without an effort to restrain them.  Ignorant of the cause, Mrs. De Haldimar only ascribed this emotion to the natural melancholy of her daughter’s character, and then she would gently chide her, and seek, by a variety of means, to divert her thoughts into some lively channel; but she had little success in the attempt to eradicate reflections already rooted in so congenial a soil.