Spring was in full tide at Blackburn’s Post, but Laurentia Blackburn and the four Marys were confined to the Women’s House by rain. There sat the girlish Princess surrounded by her handmaidens in the midst of a rude magnificence which best sets off a beautiful woman. Her feet were hidden in a superb polar bearskin which had come down from the Arctic in trade; and the chair in which she sat was completely covered by the frosted pelt of a grizzly, his huge head hanging down over the back. She was a black-haired Princess with something untamed about her like the creatures whose pelts decorated her chamber. Around her neck hung an astonishing necklace of great pearls strung alternately with water-worn nuggets of gold. Her black dress was worked at the neck and wrists with an Indian design in brightly dyed porcupine quills.
The four Marys were Indian girls, small and comely, with glistening copper faces, and raven hair drawn smoothly back from their brows. They were clad alike in black cotton dresses, with doeskin moccasins upon their feet; and a stranger would have been hard put to it to tell them apart. However, he would presently have perceived that one of them stood in quite a different relation to her mistress from the others. This was Mary-Lou who was of the Beaver tribe, whereas the others were only Slavis. She was the Princess’ foster sister. She could speak English. All four girls looked at their mistress with fear and respect; but only Mary-Lou’s face was capable of softening with love. She was reading aloud from “The Lady of the Lake.”
The others were Mary-Belle; Mary-Rose and Mary-Ann. The first-named crouched in front of the small fire which had been lighted to mitigate the dampness out-of-doors. It was her task to see that it neither went out, nor became hot enough to scorch the Princess’ face. The other two sat on a bearskin engaged in embroidering velvet-soft moccasins with gayly colored silks. None of them could understand a word of what Mary-Lou was reading from the book; and the gentle, droning voice was fatally conducive to sleep. The Princess watched them lazily through the lowered fringe of her black lashes; and, when a head was seen to nod, she exploded like a fire cracker.
“Sit up straight! Your head is going down between your shoulders! Before you are twenty-five you will be the shape of a sack of hay! Your husband if you ever get one at all will look for another wife!”
It especially terrified the girls to be scolded in the English they could not understand. This particular rebuke was addressed to Mary-Belle but all three of the Slavis cringed, and their dark eyes turned helplessly this way and that like a frightened deer’s. Mary-Lou looked apprehensive, too, expecting her turn to come next.
“Well, go on with the book,” said Loseis crossly. The name Laurentia, being unmanageable on the tongue of the Indians, they had given her this one, which means “little wild duck.”
The tremulous voice resumed.
“Oh, shut the book!” Loseis cried immediately afterwards. “It is a foolish book! It tires my ears!”
“Shall I get another book?” faltered Mary-Lou.
“What’s the use? We have read them all. They are no better than this book. All foolish, goody-goody books!”