mory:

"Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Would that I had perished for you!
Would that I were dead as you are!
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!

"Then they buried Minnehaha;
In the snow a grave they made her,
In the forest deep and darksome,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks;
Clothed her in her richest garments,
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
Covered her with snow, like ermine;
So they buried Minnehaha."

The pathos of the lines never failed to touch Dora anew. Her voice broke,
and, pausing to recover herself, she glanced at Smith. There were tears in
his eyes. The brutal chin was quivering like that of a tender-hearted
child.

"The man that wrote that was a _chief_," he said huskily. "It hurts me
here--in my neck." He rubbed the contracted muscles of his throat. "I'd
feel like that, girl, if you should die."

He repeated softly, and choked:

"All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you!"

The impression which the poem made upon Smith was deep. It was a constant
surprise to him also. The thoughts it expressed, the sensations it
described, he had believed were entirely original with himself. He had not
conceived it possible that any one else could feel toward a woman as he
felt toward Dora. Therefore, when the poet put many of his heart-throbs
into words, they startled him, as though, somehow, his own heart were
photographed and held up to view.

Susie had finished her lesson, and, cramped from sitting, was walking
about the living-room to rest herself, while this conversation was taking
place. Her glance fell upon a gaudy vase on a shelf, and some thought came
to her which made her laugh mischievously. She emptied the contents of the
vase into the palm of her hand and, closing the other over it, tiptoed
into the dining-room and stood behind Smith.

Dora and he, engrossed in conversation, paid no attention to her. She put
her cupped palms close to Smith's ear and, shaking them vigorously,
shouted:

"Snakes!"

The result was such as Susie had not anticipated.

With a shriek which was womanish in its shrillness, Smith sprang to his
feet, all but upsetting the lamp in his violence. Unmixed horror was
written upon his face.

The girl herself shrank back