ment.

"Here they are, my dear old friends, that have told me so many
beautiful things."

Cecil unrolled them with a scholar's tenderness. Their touch thrilled
him; it was touching again some familiar hand parted from years ago.
The parchments were covered with strange characters, in a language
entirely unknown to him. The initial letters were splendidly
illuminated, the margins ornamented with elaborate designs. Cecil
gazed on the scrolls, as one who loves music but who is ignorant of
its technicalities might look at a sonata of Beethoven or an opera of
Wagner, and be moved by its suggested melodies.

"I cannot read it," he said a little sadly.

"Sometime I will teach you," she replied; "and you shall teach me your
own language, and we will talk in it instead of this wretched Indian
tongue."

"Tell me something about it now," asked Cecil, still gazing at the
unknown lines.

"Not now, there is so much else to talk about; but I will to-morrow."

To-morrow! The word pierced him like a knife. For him, a missionary
among barbarians, for her, the betrothed of a savage chief, the morrow
could bring only parting and woe; the sweet, fleeting present was all
they could hope for. For them there could be no to-morrow. Wallulah,
however, did not observe his dejection. She had opened the casket, and
now placed it between them as they sat together on the divan. One by
one, she took out the contents and displayed them. A magnificent
necklace of diamonds, another of pearls; rings, brooches, jewelled
bracelets, flashed their splendor on him. Totally ignorant of their
great value, she showed them only with a true woman's love of
beautiful things, showed them as artlessly as if they were but pretty
shells or flowers.

"Are they not bright?" she would say, holding them up to catch the
light. "How they sparkle!"

One she took up a little reluctantly. It was an opal, a very fine one.
She held it out, turning it in the light, so that he might see the
splendid jewel glow and pale.

"Is it not lovely?" she said; "like sun-tints on the snow. But my
mother said that in her land it is called the stone of misfortune. It
is beautiful, but it brings trouble with it."

He saw her fingers tremble nervously as they held it, and she dropped
it from them hurriedly into the casket, as if it were some bright
poisonous thing she dreaded to touch.

After a while, when Cecil had sufficiently admired the stones, she put
them back into the caske