t and took it and the parchments away. She
came back with her flute, and seating herself, looked at him closely.

"You are sad; there are heavy thoughts on your mind. How is that? He
who brings me sunshine must not carry a shadow on his own brow. Why
are you troubled?"

The trouble was that he realized now, and was compelled to acknowledge
to himself, that he loved this gentle, clinging girl, with a
passionate love; that he yearned to take her in his arms and shelter
her from the terrible savagery before her; and that he felt it could
not, must not be.

"It is but little," he replied. "Every heart has its burden, and
perhaps I have mine. It is the lot of man."

She looked at him with a vague uneasiness; her susceptible nature
responded dimly to the tumultuous emotions that he was trying by force
of will to shut up in his own heart.

"Trouble? Oh, do I not know how bitter it is! Tell me, what do your
people do when they have trouble? Do they cut off their hair and
blacken their faces, as the Indians do, when they lose one they
love?"

"No, they would scorn to do anything so degrading. He is counted
bravest who makes the least display of grief and yet always cherishes
a tender remembrance of the dead."

"So would I. My mother forbade me to cut off my hair or blacken my
face when she died, and so I did not, though some of the Indians
thought me bad for not doing so. And your people are not afraid to
talk of the dead?"

"Most certainly not. Why should we be? We know that they are in a
better world, and their memories are dear to us. It is very sweet
sometimes to talk of them."

"But the Willamettes never talk of their dead, for fear they may hear
their names spoken and come back. Why should they dread their coming
back? Ah, if my mother only _would_ come back! How I used to long and
pray for it!"

Cecil began to talk to her about the love and goodness of God. If he
could only see her sheltered in the Divine compassion, he could trust
her to slip from him into the unknown darkness of her future. She
listened earnestly.

"Your words are good," she said in her quaint phraseology; "and if
trouble comes to me again I shall remember them. But I am very happy
now."

The warmth and thankfulness of her glance sent through him a great
thrill of blended joy and pain.

"You forget," he said, forcing himself to be calm, "that you are soon
to leave your home and become the wife of Snoqualmie."

Wallulah raised her ha