304 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



And so saying, she threw herself upon her knees 

 before the new-comer, and clasped her arms around 

 her with a rapidity and suppleness that almost re- 

 sembled the ceilings of a snake. 



" Ah, the White Eose ! " cried she, in a tone of 

 melancholy reproach ; " she is no longer the same. 

 See, the grass grows upon the path which her foot 

 used often to press. Why is my White Eose 

 sorrowful 1 " 



The complaining tones of the Indian maiden were 

 so touching, her whole posture so imploring, love and 

 anxiety were so plainly depicted on her countenance, 

 that it seemed uncertain whether the interest she 

 took in her friend had its source in the ties of near 

 relationship, or was caused by the manifold charms 

 and graces of the young girl whom she now so ten- 

 derly caressed, and who had as yet scarcely emerged 

 from childhood. This was the same Eosa whose ac- 

 quaintance we have already made, seven years pre- 

 viously, at the tavern of the Indian King, and who 

 now stood in an attitude of enchanting and unstudied 

 grace, her dark eyes, shaded by their long and silky 

 lashes, alternately reposing their glances upon her 

 kneeling friend, or gazing out into the distance with 

 a mournful, pensive look. The gently swelling breast, 

 the cheeks overspread with the most delicate tint of 

 the rose, the airy and elastic form, might have be- 

 longed to the goddess of love herself, in the days of 

 her freshest youth ; but on the other hand, the child- 



