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“No t’ink more of him—no say more of scalp,” interrupted Hist, soothingly; “you paleface, I redskin; we bring up different fashion. Deerslayer and Chingachgook great friend, and no the same color; Hist and—What your name, pretty paleface?”

“I am called Hetty, though when they spell the name in the Bible, they always spell it Esther.”

“What that make?—no good, no harm. No need to spell name at all. Moravian try to make Wah-ta-Wah spell, but no won’t let him. No good for Delaware girl to know too much—know more than warrior some time; that great shame. My name Wah-ta-Wah—that say Hist in your tongue; you call him, Hist—I call him, Hetty.”

These preliminaries settled to their mutual satisfaction, the two girls began to discourse of their several hopes and projects. Hetty made her new friend more fully acquainted with her intentions in behalf of her father; and, to one in the least addicted to prying into the affairs of others, Hist would have betrayed her own feelings and expectations in connection with the young warrior of her own tribe. Enough was revealed on both sides, however, to let each party get a tolerable insight into the views of the other, though enough still remained in mental reservation, to give rise to the following questions and answers, with which the interview in effect closed. As the quickest-witted, Hist was the first with her interrogatories. Folding an arm about the waist of Hetty, she bent her head so as to look up playfully into the face of the other; and, laughing, as if her meaning were to be extracted from her looks, she spoke more plainly.

“Hetty got broder, as well as fader?” she said; “why no talk of broder as well as fader?”

“I have no brother, Hist. I had one once, they say, but he is dead many a year, and lies buried in the lake by the side of mother.”

“No got broder—got a young warrior; love him almost as much as fader, eh? Very handsome and brave-looking; fit to be chief if he good as he seem to be.”

“It’s wicked to love any man as well as I love my father, and so I strive not to do it, Hist,” returned the conscientious Hetty, who knew not how to conceal an emotion by an approach to an untruth as venial as an evasion, though powerfully tempted by female shame to err; “though I sometimes think that wickedness will get the best of me, if Hurry comes so often to the lake. I must tell you the truth, dear Hist, because you ask me; but I should fall down and die in the woods, if he knew it.”

“Why he no ask you, himself? Brave-looking—why not bold-speaking ? Young warrior ought to ask young girl; no make young girl speak first. Mingo girls too shame for that.”

This was said indignantly, and with the generous warmth a young female of spirit would be apt to feel at what she deemed an invasion of her sex’s most valued privilege. It had little influence on the simpleminded, but also just-minded Hetty; who, though inherently feminine in all her impulses, was much more alive to the workings of her own heart, than to any of the usages with which convention has protected the sensitiveness of her sex.

“Ask me what?” the startled girl demanded, with a suddenness that proved how completely her fears had been aroused. “Ask me if I like him as well as I do my own father! O, I hope he will never put such a question to me, for I should have to answer, and that would kill me!”

“No—no—no kill, quite almost,” returned the other, laughing in spite of herself. “Make blush come—make shame come too; but he no stay great while; then feel happier than ever. Young warrior must tell young girl he want to make wife, else never can live in his wigwam.”

“Hurry don’t want to marry me—nobody will ever want to marry me, Hist.”

“How you can know? P‘r’aps everybody want to marry you, and by-and-by tongue say what heart feel. Why nobody want to marry you?”

“I am not full-witted, they say. Father often tells me this; and so does Judith sometimes, when she is vexed; but I shouldn’t so much mind them as I did mother. She said so once; and then she cried as if her heart would break; and so I know I’m not full-witted.