the remembrance of which should keep her
awake, who never stole a beaver-trap(l), or told a lie, or laughed at a
priest, was very soon in the same condition. Then the Manitou of Dreams
came to her, and she saw strange things in her sleep. She dreamed that
it wan night, and the sun had sunk behind the high and broken hills
which lay beyond the valley of her dwelling, that the dwarf willow bowed
its graceful head still lower with the weight of its tears, which are
the evening dew, and the dandelion again imprisoned its leaves within
its veil of brown. So far her dreams so closely resembled the reality,
that for a time she thought she was awake, and that it was her own
world--her cave, her berries, and her flowers, which were before her
vision. But an object speedily came to inform her that she dwelt in the
paradise of dreams--in the land of departed ideas. At the foot of her
couch of leaves, in the place of the dog which she had left there when
she slept, stood a being somewhat resembling that she had beheld in the
warm season, when bending over the river to lave her bosom with the
cooling fluid. It was taller than herself, and there was something on
its brow which proclaimed it to be fiercer and bolder, formed to wrestle
with rough winds, and to laugh at the coming tempests. For the first
time since she was, she turned away to tremble, her soul filled with a
new and undefinable feeling, for which she could not account. After
shading her eyes a moment from the vision, she looked again, and though
her trembling increased, and her brain became giddy, she did not wish
the being away, nor did she motion it to go. Why should she? There was a
smile upon its lip and brow, and a softness diffused over every feature,
which gradually restored her confidence, and gave her the assurance that
it would not harm her. She dreamed that the creature came to her arms,
and she thought that it passed the season of darkness with its cheek
laid on her bosom. To her imagination, the breath which it breathed on
her lips was balmy as the juice of the Sweet Gum Tree, or the dew from
her little neighbour, the flower. When it spoke, though she could not
understand its language, her heart heaved more tumultuously, she knew
not why, and when it ceased speaking, her sighs came thick till it spoke
again. When she awoke it was gone, the beams of the star of day shone
through the fissures of her cavern, and, in the place of the beautiful
and loved being lay