"But if the peach or the flower does not belong to you? Well, I'll not lecture you, Edward; you have sufficiently expiated your offence."
"I never dreamed," returned the delinquent, "that a kiss for a blow, which is the Christian's rule of morals, could be translated by the poor savage into a blow for a kiss."
"Probably you terrified her. That old chief has brought her up in the belief that the white man is a compound of all the vices."
"Well, she behaved as though I might be that. She never paused to consider the ruin she had wrought, but darted off like a flash of lightning."
Rose laughed; but after she departed the smile upon her brother's face quickly vanished. Not that the bruise on his brow was so severe, but he found it impossible to forgive the blow to his vanity.
"Beautiful little brute!" he muttered under his breath, "I haven't done with her yet. She'll live to give me something prettier than this in return for my caresses."
CHAPTER VII.
AN ACCIDENT.
Some days later, Edward, mounted on his favourite Black Bess, waiting for Rose to accompany him in a morning gallop, was amazed to see that venturesome young lady prepare to seat herself on Flip, a crazy little animal scarcely more than a colt, whose character for unsteadiness was notorious.
"I have set my heart on him," was all Rose could say in answer to her brother's protestations.