Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to o'ertake him.

Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his camp-fire

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,

When they had reached the place, they found only embers and ashes.

And, though their hearts were sad at times, and their bodies were weary,

Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana

Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished before them.

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently entered

Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features

Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her sorrow.

She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her people

From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Camanches,

Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-Bois, had been murdered.

Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and friendliest welcome

Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted among them

On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the embers.

But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his companions,

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the deer and the bison,

Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering fire-light

Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets,

Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and repeated

Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,

All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.

Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know

that another

Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been diappointed.

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's compassion,

Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,

She in turn related her love and all its dis

asters.

Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended

Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror

Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale of the Mowis ;

Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a maiden,

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from the wigwam,

Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sunshine,

Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far into the forest.

Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation,

Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed by a phantom,

That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the hush of the twilight,

Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to the maiden,

Till she followed his green and waving plume through the forest,

And never more returned, nor was seen again by her people.

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress.

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose,

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendour

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland.

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers.

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's heart, but a secret,

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror, As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow.

It was no earthly fear. of spirits

A breath from the region

Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt

for a moment

That, like the Indian maid, she too was pursuing a phantom.

And with this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished.

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed ; and the Shawnee

Said, as they journeyed along,-"On the western slope of these mountains

Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the Mission.

Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus;

Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they hear him."

Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline

answered,

"Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!"

Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains,

Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices,

And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of

a river,

Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission.

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village,

Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A crucifix fastened

High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grape-vines,

Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it.

This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate arches

Of its aërial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,

Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.

Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer approaching,

Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening devotions.

But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,