d.

The mournful sighing of the firs, as a current of air, escaping from the
Fiord, crept gently through them, and the quietude that reigned around,
inspired me with a feeling of melancholy; and after a while, "Do you
understand English?" I asked.

"My father was a sailor, sir," my alabaster, statue-like companion said,
sometimes speaking in her own language, and sometimes in mine, with a
pretty foreign accent, "and went to England often, and he taught me
English; but I do not know it well."

"You soon would speak it as well as I, if every day you tried," I
answered, with courage, pleased that I could make her understand me.

"But there is no one," she replied, I thought, in a sad voice, "to
speak to me; and I forget all that I have learned. My dear father used
to talk to me of England; and I remember still its tongue, because he
told me Englishmen were good and great."

She came nearer to the stone, and looking full in my face, smiled.

"Perhaps," I said, "some one of my countrymen had been kind to your
father, and he taught you a lesson too flattering not to disappoint you
when you meet an Englishman."

"No, sir, I hope not," she answered, raising her little head somewhat
proudly; "for an Englishman was kind and good to him: and my father
used, for his sake, to pray for England when he prayed for our country,
Norway; and he taught me, when a little girl, to do the same."

"And where is your father?" I asked.

"He is dead, sir," and the poor girl began to weep, but so quietly, that
I was not aware of her grief until the tremulous motion of her hand, in
which she had concealed her face, indicated her sorrow, and made me
regret that I had asked the question. Recovering her self-possession,
she went on to speak, although, without a sob, her tears still flowed
abundantly.

"This cross," she said, lifting it from her heaving bosom, "my poor
father gave, and bade me always wear; for baring his arm one day, he
showed a cross tattooed upon the skin, and told me if he died far from
his own home, all barbarous men, even Indians, when they saw that sign,
would not let his corpse be eaten by birds or beasts of prey; but bury
it."

Her delicate frame swelled with strong emotions, and she could scarce
contain her loud grief.

"He died, sir," she continued, "two years ago on the banks of a river
near Rio, in South America; and some Indian tribe, in adoration, as he
had surely said, to this symbol of our creed, buried h