on, and stepping to the bed-side,
"if you will not be angry with me, I would, I would--"

"You would ask a favour, perhaps," said Edith, encouraging her with a
smile.

"Yes, that is it," replied the girl, dropping on her knees, not so much,
however, as it appeared, from abasement of spirit, as to bring her lips
nearer to Edith's ear, that she might speak in a lower voice. "I know,
from what they say, you are a great lady, and that you once had many
people to wait upon you; and now you are in the wild woods, among
strangers, and none about you but men." Edith replied with a sigh, and
Telie, timorously grasping at the hand lying nearest her own, murmured
eagerly, "If you would but take _me_ with you, I am used to the woods,
and I would be your servant."

"_You_!" exclaimed Edith, her surprise getting the better of her sadness.
"Your mother would surely never consent to your being a servant?"

"My mother?" muttered Telie,--"I have no mother,--no relations."

"What! Mr. Bruce is not then your father?"

"No,--I have no father. Yes,--that is, I have a father; but he has,--he
has turned Indian."

These words were whispered rather than spoken, yet whispered with a tone
of grief and shame that touched Edith's feelings. Her pity was expressed
in her countenance, and Telie, reading the gentle sympathy infused into
every lovely feature, bent over the hand she had clasped, and touched it
with her lips.

"I have told you the truth," she said, mournfully: "one like me should
not be ashamed to be a servant. And so, lady, if you will take me, I will
go with you and serve you; and poor and ignorant as I am, I _can_ serve
you,--yes, ma'am," she added, eagerly, "I can serve you more and better
than you think,--indeed, indeed I can."

"Alas, poor child," said Edith, "I am one who must learn to do without
attendance and service. I have no home to give you."

"I have heard it all," said Telie; "but I can live in the woods with you,
till you have a house; and then I can work for you, and you'll never
regret taking me,--no, indeed, for I know all that's to be done by a
woman in a new land, and you don't; and, indeed, if you have none to help
you, it would kill you, it would indeed: for it is a hard, hard time in
the woods, for a woman that has been brought up tenderly."

"Alas, child," said Edith, perhaps a little pettishly, for she liked not
to dwell upon such gloomy anticipations, "why should you be discontented
with the home you