"Perhaps," I said, "some one of my countrymen had been kind to your father, and he taught you a lesson too flattering not to disappoint you when you meet an Englishman."
"No, sir, I hope not," she answered, raising her little head somewhat proudly; "for an Englishman was kind and good to him: and my father used, for his sake, to pray for England when he prayed for our country, Norway; and he taught me, when a little girl, to do the same."
"And where is your father?" I asked.
"He is dead, sir," and the poor girl began to weep, but so quietly, that I was not aware of her grief until the tremulous motion of her hand, in which she had concealed her face, indicated her sorrow, and made me regret that I had asked the question. Recovering her self-possession, she went on to speak, although, without a sob, her tears still flowed abundantly.
"This cross," she said, lifting it from her heaving bosom, "my poor father gave, and bade me always wear; for baring his arm one day, he showed a cross tattooed upon the skin, and told me if he died far from his own home, all barbarous men, even Indians, when they saw that sign, would not let his corpse be eaten by birds or beasts of prey; but bury it."
Her delicate frame swelled with strong emotions, and she could scarce contain her loud grief.
"He died, sir," she continued, "two years ago on the banks of a river near Rio, in South America; and some Indian tribe, in adoration, as he had surely said, to this symbol of our creed, buried him."
She had not yet made an end of speaking, when the sound of the church clocks, ascending faintly, tolled eleven. It was broad daylight; for, though the sun had set, his rays darted in orange-tinted pillars to the centre of the sky, and sustained the glory of his presence. My young and beautiful companion, starting at the sound, wiped away her tears, and seemed to regret the lateness of the hour; and noting each vibration as it fell on her ear, she commenced with her thumb, and then advancing to the tip of each tapering finger, counted, with a whisper in her native language,
"En, twå, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, åtta, nie, tie,—elfva!"
Her exclamation of surprise and regret that she had remained so long from home, made me strive to soothe her fears. When she was about to hurry away, I begged her to tell me her name, that I might know what to call her for the future.