CHAPTER VI.
"Here the wren of softest note Builds its nest and warbles well; Here the blackbird strains his throat; Welcome, welcome to our cell."-- COLERIDGE.
The day was far advanced, before the sick Indian girl could be brought home to their sylvan lodge, where Catharine made up a comfortable couch for her, with boughs and grass, and spread one of the deer-skins over it, and laid her down as tenderly and carefully as if she had been a dear sister.

This good girl was overjoyed at having found a companion of her own age and sex.

"Now," said she, "I shall no more be lonely, I shall have a companion and friend to talk to and assist me;" but when she turned in the fulness of her heart to address herself to the young stranger, she felt herself embarrassed in what way to make her comprehend the words she used to express the kindness that she felt for her, and her sorrow for her sufferings.
The young stranger would raise her head, look intently at her, as if striving to interpret her words, then sadly shake her head, and utter her words in her own plaintive language, but, alas! Catharine felt it was to her as a sealed book.
She tried to recall some Indian words of familiar import, that she had heard from the Indians when they came to her father's house, but in vain; not the simplest phrase occurred to her, and she almost cried with vexation at her own stupidity; neither was Hector or Louis more fortunate in attempts at conversing with their guest.
At the end of three days, the fever began to abate; the restless eye grew more steady in its gaze, the dark flush faded from the cheek, leaving it of a grey ashy tint, not the hue of health, such as even the swarthy Indian shows, but wan and pallid, her eyes bent mournfully on the ground.
She would sit quiet and passive while Catharine bound up the long tresses of her hair, and smoothed them with her hands and the small wooden comb that Louis had cut for her use.

Sometimes she would raise her eyes to her new friend's face, with a quiet sad smile, and once she took her hands within her own, and gently pressed them to her breast and lips and forehead in token of gratitude, but she seldom gave utterance to any words, and would remain with her eyes fixed vacantly on some object which seemed unseen or to awaken no idea in her mind.

At such times the face of the young squaw wore a dreamy apathy of expression, or rather it might with more propriety have been said, the absence of all expression, almost as blank as that of an infant of a few weeks old.
How intently did Catharine study that face, and strive to read what was passing within her mind! how did the lively intelligent Canadian girl, the offspring of a more intellectual race, long to instruct her Indian friend, to enlarge her mind by pointing out such things to her attention as she herself took interest in! She would then repeat the name of the object that she showed her several times over, and by degrees the young squaw learned the names of all the familiar household articles about the shanty, and could repeat them in her own soft plaintive tone; and when she had learned a new word, and could pronounce it distinctly, she would laugh, and a gleam of innocent joy and pleasure would lighten up her fine dark eyes, generally so fixed and sad-looking.
It was Catharine's delight to teach her pupil to speak a language familiar to her own ears; she would lead her out among the trees, and name to her all the natural objects that presented themselves to view.
And she in her turn made "Indiana" (for so they named the young squaw, after a negress that she had heard her father tell of, a nurse to one of his Colonel's infant children,) tell her the Indian names for each object they saw.