on a letter arrived for her. It came into General Armour's hands,
and he, seeing that it bore the stamp of the Hudson's Bay Company, with
the legend, From Fort St. Charles, concluded that it was news of Lali's
father. Then came the question whether the letter should be given to
her. The general was for doing so, and he prevailed. If it were bad
news, he said, it might raise her out of her present apathy and by
changing the play of her emotions do her good in the end.

The letter was given to her in the afternoon. She took it apathetically,
but presently, seeing where it was from, she opened it hurriedly with a
little cry which was very like a moan too. There were two letters inside
one from the factor at Fort Charles in English, and one from her father
in the Indian language. She read her father's letter first, the other
fluttered to her feet from her lap. General Armour, looking down, saw a
sentence in it which, he felt, warranted him in picking it up, reading
it, and retaining it, his face settling into painful lines as he did so.
Days afterwards, Lali read her father's letter to Mrs. Armour. It ran:

My daughter,

Lali, the sweet noise of the Spring:

Thy father speaks.

I have seen more than half a hundred moons come like the sickle and
go like the eye of a running buck, swelling with fire, but I hear
not thy voice at my tent door since the first one came and went.

Thou art gone.

Thy face was like the sun on running water; thy hand hung on thy
wrists like the ear of a young deer; thy foot was as soft on the
grass as the rain on a child's cheek; thy words were like snow in
summer, which melts in richness on the hot earth. Thy bow and arrow
hang lonely upon the wall, and thy empty cup is beside the pot.

Thou art gone.

Thou hast become great with a great race, and that is well. Our
race is not great, and shall not be, until the hour when the Mighty
Men of the Kimash Hills arise from their sleep and possess the land
again.

Thou art gone.

But thou hast seen many worlds, and thou hast learned great things,
and thou and I shall meet no more; for how shall the wise kneel at
the feet of the foolish, as thou didst kneel once at thy father's
feet?

Thou art gone.

High on the Clip Claw Hills the trees are green, in the Plain of the
Rolling Stars the wings of the wild fowl are many, and fine is the
mist upon Go