“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.”