rusts himself
forward like that! He has no sense of fitness!--standing there and
facing down the brother of a crowned head!--bad as the head is. Of
course Mademoiselle Annabel set him on; she loves to make people
ridiculous!"

I walked downstairs after Prince Jerome, threaded a way among gazing
dancers, and left the hall, stung in my pride.

We do strangely expand and contract in vital force and reach of vision.
I wanted to put the lake--the world itself--between me and that
glittering company. The edge of a ball-room and the society of men in
silks and satins, and of bewitching women, were not intended for me.

Homesickness like physical pain came over me for my old haunts. They
were newly recognized as beloved. I had raged against them when
comparing myself to Croghan. But now I thought of the evening camp fire,
and hunting-stories, of the very dogs that licked my hand; of St. Regis,
and my loft bed, of snowshoes, and the blue northern river, longing for
them as the young Mohawks said I should long. Tom betwixt two natures,
the white man's and the Indian's, I flung a boat out into the water and
started to go home faster than I had come away. The slowness of a boat's
progress, pushed by the silly motion of oars, which have not the nice
discrimination of a paddle, impressed me as I put the miles behind.

When the camp light shone through trees it must have been close to
midnight, and my people had finished their celebration of the corn
dance. An odor of sweet roasted ears dragged out of hot ashes reached
the poor outsider. Even the dogs were too busy to nose me out. I slunk
as close as I dared and drew myself up a tree, lying stretched with arms
and legs around a limb.

They would have admitted me to the feast, but as a guest. I had no
longer a place of my own, either here or there. It was like coming back
after death, to realize that you were unmissed. The camp was full of
happiness and laughter. Young men chased the young maids, who ran
squealing with merriment. My father, Thomas Williams, and my mother,
Marianne, sat among the elders tranquil and satisfied. They were
ignorant Indians; but I had no other parents. Skenedonk could be seen,
laughing at the young Mohawks.

If there was an oval faced mother in my past, who had read to me from
the missal, I wanted her. If, as Madame Tank said, I outranked De
Chaumont's daughter, I wanted my rank. It was necessary for me to have
something of my own: to have love from