"The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time; if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure for every thing, and so dance out the answer."—Beatrice.
"Dus!" I repeated to myself—"This, then, is Dus, and no Indian girl; the Chainbearer's 'Dus;' Priscilla Bayard's 'Dus;' and Sureflint's 'wren'!"
Andries must have overheard me, in part; for he stopped just within the court on which the gate opened, and said—
"Yes, t'at is Dus, my niece. The girl is like a mocking-pird, and catches the songs of all languages and people. She is goot at Dutch, and quite melts my heart, Mortaunt, when she opens her throat to sing one of our melancholy Dutch songs; and she gives the English too, as if she knowet no ot'er tongue."
"But that song was Indian—the words, at least, were Mohawk or Oneida."
"Onondago—t'ere is little or no tifference. Yes, you're right enough; the worts are Indian, and they tell me t'e music is Scotch. Come from where it will, it goes straight to the heart, poy."
"How came Dus—how came Miss Ursula—that is, your niece, to understand an Indian dialect?"
"Didn't I tell you she is a perfect mocking-bird, and that she imitates all she hears? Yes, Dus would make as goot a surveyor as her brot'er, after a week's trial. You've heart me say how much I livet among the tripes before t'e war, and Dus was t'en wit' me. In that manner she has caught the language; and what she has once l'arnet she nefer forget. Dus is half wilt from living so much in the woots, and you must make allowances for her; put she is a capital gal, and t'e very prite of my heart!"
"Tell me one thing before we enter the house—does any one else sing Indian about here?—has Sureflint any women with him?"