our Choctaw Indians, I verily
believe."

"So they were, so they were, my dear," said my father, complacently,
"but for some reasons we must always treat their memory with a certain
respect. They were God's people, remember, in the absence of a better,
and their history is written in this book, which we must all revere."

"A very great people, surely," said Mr. Bainrothe, "and destined to be
so again. Don't you think so, Miriam?"

"I don't know," I said; "I have never thought of such a possibility
before, I acknowledge, yet it is natural I should incline to my
mother's people, and I can say heartily, _I hope so_, Mr. Bainrothe."

"Then you want to see the Christian religion trampled under foot," said
Evelyn, spitefully, fixing her eyes on mine.

The blood rose hotly to my temples. "No, no, indeed! You know I do not,
Evelyn, for it is mine; but Christ died for all, Jew as well as Gentile.
Through him let us hope for change and mercy and peace on earth. When
infinite harmony prevails, the Hebrew race will find its appointed place
and level again, through one great principle."

"My idea is, that it has found its appointed place and level, and will
abide there.--But to digress, when do you expect your son, Mr.
Bainrothe?"

I have anticipated by many years in giving this snatch of conversation
here. Let us go back to the time of my father's marriage, and to affairs
as they stood then, for precious are the unities.

I need not drop Mr. Bainrothe, however, and it was of him, our left-hand
neighbor, so intimately connected with our destiny, one and all, that I
was about to speak when the digression occurred which led me from the
high-road of my story.

Our "sinister neighbor," as my father laughingly called him sometimes
with unconscious truth, in reference to his _left-hand_ adjacency, was a
handsome and gentlemanly-looking man of no very particular age, or
rather in his appearance there was no criterion for decision on this
subject. His form was as slender and elastic, his step as light, his
teeth, hair, and complexion, as unexceptionable as though he had been
twenty-five; nor were there any of those signs and symptoms about him by
which the weather-wise usually measure experience and length of days.

If care had come nigh him at all, it had swept as lightly past him as
time itself. His address was invariably urbane, self-possessed,
well-bred; his voice was pleasant, his smile rather brilliant, though it
never rea