os,
"that the children of the Lenape were masters of the world. The fishes
of the salt lake, the birds, the beasts, and the Mengee of the woods,
owned them for Sagamores."

Cora bowed her head in disappointment, and, for a bitter moment
struggled with her chagrin. Then, elevating her rich features and
beaming eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
unearthly voice of the patriarch himself:

"Tell me, is Tamenund a father?"

The old man looked down upon her from his elevated stand, with a
benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes
slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered:

"Of a nation."

"For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief," she
continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering
her head to droop until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the
maze of dark, glossy tresses that fell in disorder upon her shoulders,
"the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child. But yonder
is one who has never known the weight of Heaven's displeasure until now.
She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their
close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she
is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain."

"I know that the pale faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that
they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their
color is better than the Sachems of the red man. The dogs and crows of
their tribes," continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the
wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the
earth in shame, as he proceeded, "would bark and caw before they would
take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow.
But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They
entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun.
I have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the
season of blossoms has always come again."

"It is so," said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a
trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with
a kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness of her
countenance; "but why--it is not permitted us to inquire. There is yet
one of thine own people who has not been brought before thee; before
thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak."

Observi