"No; I was prepared for it," replied Edith. "My father had described the autumn scenery to me often before we came."
"Then was he ever in America before he came to settle?" asked her companion.
"Yes, once," answered Edith. She spoke in a very grave tone, and then ceased suddenly.
But her brother took the subject up with a boy's frankness, saying: "Did you never hear that my grandfather and my father's sister died in Virginia? He was in command there, and my father came over just before my birth."
"It is a long story and a sad one, my lord," said Edith, with a sigh; "but look now as we mount the hill, and see how the scene changes. Every step upon the hillside gives us a different sort of tree, and the brush disappears from amidst the trunks. This grove is my favorite evening seat, where I can read and think under the broad, shady boughs, with nothing but beautiful sights around me."
"Truly, this is an enchanting scene. It wants, methinks, but the figure of an Indian in the foreground; and there comes one, I fancy, to fill up the picture--stay! stay! We shall want no rifles! It is but a woman coming through the trees."
"It is Otaitsa--it is the Blossom!" cried Edith and Walter in a breath, as they looked forward to a spot where across the yellow sunshine as it streamed through the trees, a female figure, clad in the gaily embroidered and bright-colored gakaah, or petticoat, of the Indian women, was seen advancing with a rapid yet somewhat doubtful step. Edith, without pause or hesitation, sprang forward to meet the newcomer, and in a moment after the beautiful arms of the Indian girl who had sat with Walter in the morning were round the fair form of his sister, and her lips pressed on hers. There was a warmth and eagerness in their meeting unusual on the part of the red race; but while the young Oneida almost lay upon the bosom of her white friend, her beautiful dark eyes were turned toward her lover, as with a mixture of the bashful feelings of youth and the consciousness of having something to conceal, Walter, with a glowing cheek, lingered a step or two behind his sister.
"Art thou coming to our lodge, dear Blossom?" asked Edith; and then added, "Where is thy father?"
"We both come," answered the girl, in pure English, with no more of the Indian accent than served to give a peculiar softness to her tones. "I wait the Black Eagle here since dawn of day. He has gone toward the morning with our father the White Heron; for we heard of Hurons by the side of Corlear, and some thought the hatchet would be unburied. So he journeyed to hear more from our friends by Horicon, and bade me stay and tell you and your brother Walter to forbear that road if I saw you turn your eyes toward the east wind. He and the White Heron will be by your father's council fire with the first star."
A good deal of this speech was unintelligible to Lord H----, who had now approached, and on whom Blossom's eyes were turned with a sort of timid and inquiring look. But Walter hastened to interpret, saying: "She means that her father and the missionary, Mr. Gore, have heard that there are hostile Indians on the shores of Lake Champlain, and have gone down toward Lake George to inquire; for Black Eagle--that is her father--is much our friend, and he always fancies that my father has chosen a dangerous situation here, just at the verge of the territory of the Five Nations, or their Long House, as they call it."