pleases, and with the self-satisfied countenance of one who has made a virtuous resolution.

But Pierre knew little of the frailty of his own heart. He began to reflect that the lady tendered to his acceptance was the daughter of a king, and reasoning in his own mind that the proposed alliance would make him a prince, and heir apparent, he had strong doubts whether patriotism and the honor of the French nation, did not require him to sacrifice his affections to the glory and advantage of giving a civilized king to the Illini. Napoleon has since been called upon to decide a similar question; and Pierre, though not a great warrior, loved his country and himself as well as Napoleon. He reflected further, that the possession of the sovereign power would be the readiest way to the discovery of the fountain of rejuvenescence; the gold-mines would all be his own, and he could send Annette a ship-load of the precious metal. Moreover, he had already discovered, that in the new world it was the custom for great men to have a plurality of wives-a custom that seemed to him to be founded in good sense-and he saw no reason why he should not comply with it, and with the first cargo of gold he should send to France, despatch an invitation to Annette to share his prosperity, and the happiness of his tawny bride.

So he determined to marry the lady; and having thus definitely settled the question, thought it would be proper to take the advice of his spiritual guide. Father Francis admonished him of the sin of marrying a heathen, and the wickedness of breaking his plighted troth, and assured him in advance, that such conduct would bring down upon him the displeasure of the church. Pierre thanked him with the most humble appearance of conviction, and forthwith proceeded to gratify his own inclination, believing that in the affair of wedlock he knew what was for his good, quite as well as a holy monk, who, to the best of his judgment, could know very little about the matter.

On the following morning the marriage took place, with no other ceremony than the delivery of the bride into the hands of her future husband. Pierre was as happy as bridegrooms usually are, for his companion was a slender, pretty girl, with a mild black eye, and an agreeable countenance. The females of the village assembled, and practised a good many jokes at the expense of the young couple, and Pierre, as well to get rid of these, as to improve the earliest opportunity for examining into the mineral treasures of the country, endeavored by signs, to invite his partner to a stroll. intimating that he would be infinitely obliged to her, if she would have the politeness to show him a gold-mine or two. The girl signified her acquiescence, and presently stole away through the forest, followed by the enamoured hair-dresser. As soon as they were out of sight of the

village, Pierre offered her his arm, but the arch girl darted away laughing, and shaking her black tresses which streamed in the air behind her, as she leapt over the logs, and glided through the thickets. Pierre was an active young fellow, and for a while followed the beautiful savage with a creditable degree of speed, but unaccustomed to the obstacles which impeded his way, he soon became fatigued. His companion slackened her pace when she found him lingering behind, aud when the thicket was more than usually intricate, kindly guided him through the most practicable places, always, however, keeping out of his reach, and whenever he mended his pace, or showed an inclination to overtake her, she would dart away, looking back over her shoulder, laughing, and coquetting, and inviting him to follow. For a time this was amusing enough, and quite to the taste of the merry barber; but the day was hot, the perspiration flowed copiously, and he began to doubt the expediency of having to catch a wife, or win even a gold-mine, by the sweat of his brow. Adventurers to new lands expect to get things easily; the fruits of labor may be had at home.

On they went, in this manner, until Pierre, wearied out, was about to give up the pursuit of his light-heeled bride, when they reached a spot where the ground gradually ascended, until all at once they stood upon the edge of an elevated and extensive plain. Our traveller had heretofore obtained glimpses of the prairies, but now saw one of these vast plains for the first time in its breadth and grandeur. Its surface was quietly undulating, and as he happened to be placed on one of the highest swells, he looked over a boundless surface, where not a single tree intercepted the prospect or relieved the monotony. He strained his vision forward, but the plain was boundless, making the curved line of its profile on the far distant horizon. The effect was rendered more striking by the appearance of the setting sun, which had sunk to the level of the farthest edge of the prairie, and seemed like a globe of fire resting upon the ground. Pierre looked around him with admiration. The vast expanse destitute of trees, covered with tall grass, now dried by the summer's heat, and extending, as it seemed to him, to the western verge of the continent, excited his special wonder. Little versed in natural philosophy, he persuaded himself that he had reached the western boundary of the world, and saw the very spot where the sun passed over the edge of the great terrestrial plane. "Yes," he solemnly exclaimed, "there is the end of the world! how fortunate am I to have approached it in day-light, and with a guide; otherwise I might have stepped over in the dark, and fallen-I know not where!"

The Indian girl had seated herself on the grass, and was composedly waiting his pleasure, when he discovered large masses of smoke rolling upward in the west. He pointed towards this new

phenomenon, and endeavoured to obtain some explanation of its meaning. The obliging girl rose, and led the way towards it. They walked for more than an hour. The sun had gone down, the breeze had subsided, and the stillness of death was around them. Pierre began to have awful feelings, and would have turned back, but the pride of a French gentleman, and a marquis in anticipation, prevented him. He had taken a step contrary to the advice of his father confessor, and was in open rebellion against the church, and he began to fear that some evil spirit, under the guise of an Indian maid, was seducing him away to destruction. At all events, he determined not to go much further.

The shades of night had begun to close, when they again ascended one of those elevations which swell so gradually that the traveller scarcely remarks them until he reaches the summit, and beholds from a commanding eminence a boundless landscape spread before him. The veil of night, without concealing the scene, rendered it indistinct; the undulations of the surface were no longer perceptible and the prairie seemed a perfect plain, like that of the ocean in a calm. One phenomenon astonished and perplexed him: before him the plain was lighted up with a dim but supernatural brilliance, like that of a distant fire, while behind him was the blackness of darkness. He looked again, and the horizon, gleamed brighter and brighter, until a fiery redness arose above its dark outline, while heavy, slowmoving masses of cloud, curled upward above it. It was evidently the intense reflection, and the voluminous smoke, of a vast fire! In another moment the blaze itself appeared, first shooting up at one spot, and then at another, and advancing, until the whole line of horizon was clothed with flames that rolled onward, and curled and dashed upward, like the angry waves of a blazing ocean.

Pierre could gaze no longer. A sudden horror thrilled his soul. His worst fears were realised in the tremendous scene. He saw before him the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. He thought he could easily distinguish gigantic black forms dancing in the flame, throwing up their long, misshapen arms, and writhing their bodies into fantastic shapes. Uttering a piercing shriek, he turned and fled with the swiftness of an arrow. Fear gave new vigour to the muscles which had before been relaxed with fatigue, and his feet so lately heavy, now touched the ground with the light and springy tread of the antelope. The Indian girl clapped her hands, and laughed loud as she pursued him. That laugh, which in the morning of this eventful day had enlivened his heart by its joyous tones, now filled him with terror. It seemed the yell of a demonthe triumphant scream of hellish pleasure over the downfall of his soul! A supernatural strength and swiftness seemed to give him wings as he bounded away with the speed of the chased ostrich of

the desert; but he seemed to himself to crawl heavily, and whenever he cast a glance behind, he saw that the dark maid of the prairie was laughing at his heels. He tried to invoke the saints, but alas! in the confusion of his mind he could not recollect the names of more than half a dozen, nor determine which was the most suitable one to be called upon in such an anomalous case. At last he reached the village, staggered into a lodge which happened to be unoccupied, and sunk down insensible.

The sun was just rising above the eastern horizon, when Pierre awoke. The Indian girl bent over him with looks of tender solicitude. She had pillowed his head upon the soft plumage of the swan, and covered him with robes of the finest fur. She had watched his dreamy sleep through the long hours of the night, had bathed his throbbing temples with water from the spring, and passed her slender fingers through his ringlets, with the fondness of a young and glowing affection, until her cares had soothed the unconscious object of her tenderness into a calm repose. No sooner did he open his eyes, than all the dreadful images of the night became again pictured upon his imagination. He rose, and rushed wildly to the shore. The boats were just leaving the bank; his companions had been grieved at his marriage, and alarmed, when they found he had left the village; but Father Francis, a rigid moralist, and a stern man, determined not to wait for him a moment, and the little barks were already shoved into the stream, when the haggard barber appeared, and plunged in the water. As he climbed the side of the nearest boat, he conjured his comrades in tones of agony, to fly. Imagining that he had discovered some treachery in their new allies, they obeyed; the oars were plied with vigour, and the vessels of the white strangers rapidly disappeared from the eyes of the astonished Illini.

Pierre took to his bed, and remained an invalid during the rest of the voyage. Nor did he set his foot on shore again. They descended the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico, where, finding a ship destined for France, he took leave of his companions, from whom he had carefully concealed the true cause of his alarm. During the passage across the Atlantic he recovered his health, and, in some measure, his spirits; but he never regained his thirst for adventure, his ambition to be a marquis, or his desire to seek for gold. On all these subjects he remained silent as the grave. A new misfortune awaited him at home, where, to his infinite mortification, he found Annette married to a lank, snivelling pastry-cook, dispensing smiles, and pies, and sugar-plums, from behind a counter, and enjoying as much happiness as she could have tasted in the rank to which he had once destined her. Pierre shrugged his shoulders, snapped his fingers, and resumed his humble occupation. He lived a barber

and died a bachelor. When the bloom of youth began to fade from his cheek, and the acuteness of his sensibilities became a little blunted,-when he saw his rival, the confectioner, prospering and growing fat, and the prospect of Annette's becoming a widow more and more remote, his reserve wore away, and he began to relate his adventures to his customers. He became quite celebrated; many flocked to his shop to hear his interesting recital, and the burning lake was added, by common fame, to the other wonders of the new world.

The Indian maid followed the white stranger to the shore, and saw him depart with grief. She gazed at the receding boats, until they reached an angle of the river, where they vanished forever from her view; and then she sat down and buried her face in her hands. Her companions, in sympathy for her feelings, left her alone, and when all eyes were withdrawn, she gave vent to her feelings, and wept bitterly over her shame. She had been betrothed in the face of the whole tribe, and had been publicly deserted by her lover. He had fled from her with every appearance of terror and loathing. She was repudiated under circumstances of notoriety, which deeply wounded her pride; while a tenderness newly awakened, and evinced to the full extent that maiden delicacy permitted, was cruelly repaid by insult. Nor was the acuteness of these feelings at all blunted by the suspicion that she had been herself an accessory in producing the melancholy result. Pierre had followed her to the prairie with all the joyous hilarity of an ardent lover-he had fled from her in fear, and although the cause of his terror was unknown, she imputed it to something in her own deportment or person. There is no anguish which a woman feels so keenly as the pang of mortified affection-the conviction that her offered love is spurned-the virgin shame of having betrayed a preference for one who does not requite it-the mortification of attempting and failing to kindle the flame of love. Woman can bear, and thousands have borne, the pain of loving without being beloved, when the secret remains hidden in their bosoms; but when the husband or the accepted love, repels or coldly estimates, the warm and frank avowal of a virtuous passion, he inflicts a wound which no surgery can heal, he touches one of the master springs of the heart with a rudeness that reaches its vitality, and withers it forever. Woman can bear pain, or misfortune, with a fortitude that man may emulate in vain; but she has a heart whose sensibilities require a delicate observance -she submits to power with humility, to oppression with patience, to the ordinary calamities of human nature with resignation-nothing breaks her heart, but slighted love.

For whole days did the Indian maid wander through the solitary forest, ashamed to return to the encampment of her tribe.

When