young posterity.

"The women who accompanied the troop displayed for my youth a tender pity and an amiable curiosity. They questioned me about my mother, concerning the earliest days of my life; and they wanted to know whether my cradle of moss had been hung upon the flowering branches of the maple-trees, and whether the breezes had rocked me near the nests of the little birds. Then came a thousand other questions as to the state of my heart. They asked me if I had seen a white fawn in my dreams, and whether the trees of the secret valley had advised me to love. I replied with simplicity to the mothers, to the daughters, and to the spouses of the men, saying, 'You are the graces of the day, and the night loves you like dew. Man issues from your loins to hang upon your breast and upon your lips: you know the magic words that lull every pain. So was I told by her who brought me into the world, and who will never see me again! She told me also that maidens are mysterious flowers met with in solitary places.'

"These praises gave much pleasure to the women, who overwhelmed me with all sorts of presents, and brought me cocoa-nut cream, maple-tree sugar, saganrite, * bear-hams, beaver-skins, shells with which to ornament myself, and moss for my couch. They sang and laughed with me, and then took to shedding tears at the thought that I was to be burnt.

"One night, when the Muscogulges had pitched their camp on the outskirt of a forest, I was seated near the war-fire with the guard who had charge of me. All of a sudden, I heard the sound of a dress upon the grass, and a female, half-veiled, came and sat down by my side. Tears were rolling from beneath her eyelids, and I saw by the light of the fire that a small golden crucifix shone upon her bosom. She was altogether beautiful, and I remarked upon her countenance an expression of virtue and passion of irresistible attraction. To that she added the most tender graces: an extreme sensitiveness, united to a profound melancholy, breathed in her looks, and her smile was heavenly.

"I took her to be the Virgin of the last Loves, the virgin sent to the prisoner of war to enchant his tomb. Under this impression, I said to her stammeringly, and with an emotion that did not, however, proceed from any feeling of fear of the funeral pile, 'O virgin, you are worthy of a first love, and you are not made for the last. The palpitations of a heart that will soon cease to beat would ill respond to the movements of your own. How can death and life lie mingled together? You would cause me to regret too much the approach of day. Let another be happier than myself, and may long embraces unite the tender plant to the oak!'

"The youthful maiden then said to me, 'I am not the Virgin of the last Loves. Are you a Christian?' I replied that I had not betrayed the genii of my cottage. At these words the Indian made an involuntary movement, and said, 'I pity you for being merely a wicked idolator. My mother made me a Christian; my name is Atala, and I am the daughter of Simaghan of the Golden Bracelets, the chief of the warriors of this troop. We are going to Apalachucla, where you will be burnt.' Having uttered these words, Atala rose and took her departure."

Here. Chactas was compelled to interrupt his story. A crowd of souvenirs rushed into his soul; his closed eyes inundated his furrowed cheeks with tears, just as two springs, hidden in the profound depths of the earth, reveal themselves by the waters they send filtering between the rocks.

"Oh, my son," said he, after a long pause, "you perceive that Chactas is not very wise, notwithstanding his reputation for wisdom. Alas! my dear child, although men can no longer see, they can still weep! Several days passed. Every evening the old man's daughter came to converse with me. Sleep had fled from my eyes, and Atala was in my heart like the remembrance of the resting-place of my fathers.

"On the seventeenth day of our march, about the time when the ephemeran rises from the waters, we entered upon the grand savannah of Alachua. The plain is surrounded with hills, which, receding behind one another, are covered, as they appear to touch the clouds, with ranges of forests of palm-trees, citron-trees, magnolias and oaks. The chief uttered the cry of arrival, and the troop encamped at the foot of a hill-side. I was left at some distance, on the border of one of those natural wells so famous in the Floridas, attached to the trunk of a tree, and guarded by a warrior who watched me with impatience. I had passed but some moments in this place when Atala appeared beneath the liquid ambers of the fountain. 'Hunter,' said she to the Muscogulgan hero, 'if you would like to chase the stag, I will guard the prisoner.' The warrior jumped for joy at this offer of the chiefs daughter, and at once hurried from the top of the hill, and directed his steps towards the plain.

"What a strange contradiction is the heart of man! I, who had so much desired to speak of things mysterious to her whom I already loved like the sun, suddenly became troubled and confused, and felt as though I should have preferred to be thrown amongst the crocodiles in the fountain to finding myself alone with Atala. The daughter of the desert was as much affected as her prisoner. We observed a profound silence; for the genii of love had deprived us of speech. After an interval, Atala, making an effort, spoke thus: 'Warrior, you are held but slightly: you can easily escape.' At these words courage returned to my tongue, and I replied, 'But slightly held, O woman!'—— I could not complete my phrase. Atala hesitated some moments, and then said, 'Fly!' at the same time liberating me from the trunk of the tree. I seized the cord, and returned it to the hand of the foreign maiden, forcing her beautiful fingers to close themselves upon my chain. 'Take it back! Take it back!' I cried. 'You are mad!' said Atala, in a voice full of emotion. 'Wretched man, do you not know that you will be burnt? What do you mean? Do you reflect that I am the daughter of a redoubtable sachem?' 'There was a time,' I replied, with tears, 'when I also was carried about in a beaver-skin on the shoulders of a mother: my father also had a fine cottage, and his fawns drank of the waters of a thousand torrents; but I now wander without a country. When I shall have ceased to exist, no friend will place a little grass over my body, to keep the insects away from it. The corpse of an unhappy stranger interests no one.'

"These words touched Atala. Her tears fell into the fountain. 'Ah,' I continued with vivacity, 'if your heart spoke like mine! Is not the desert free? Do not the forests contain folds in which we could conceal ourselves? And, in order to be happy, are there so many things necessary for the children of the huts? O maiden, more beautiful than the first dream of a spouse! O my well-beloved, dare to follow me!' Such was my language. Atala replied to me in a tender tone of voice, 'My young friend, you have learnt the expressions of the white men; it is easy to deceive an Indian girl!' 'What!' I exclaimed, 'you call me your young friend. Ah, if a poor slave'—— 'Well,' said she, leaning upon me, 'a poor slave'——

I continued with ardor, 'Let a kiss assure him of your faith!' Atala listened to my prayers. As a fawn appears to cling to the flowers of the rosy creepers which it seizes with its delicate tongue on the mountain-steeps, so I remained attached to the lips of my well-beloved.

FULL-SIZE -- Medium-Size

"Alas, my dear son, pain is in close attendance upon pleasure. Who could have thought that