"
"He loves you very much."
"Yes," she said, in the most unembarrassed and natural manner
possible, "he told me so himself."
"And can't you return his love?"
"I do love him as I do my father, brother, or sister."
"Couldn't you add the word husband?"
"Never, never," she said, "Mr Slick. He thinks he loves me now, but he
may not think so always. He don't see the red blood now, he don't
think of my Indian mother; when he comes nearer perhaps he will see
plainer. No, no, half-cast and outcast, I belong to no race. Shall I
go back to my tribe and give up my father and his people? they will
not receive me, and I must fall asleep with my mother. Shall I stay
here and cling to him and his race, that race that scorns the
half-savage? never! never! when he dies I shall die too. I shall have
no home then but the home of the spirits of the dead."
"Don't talk that way, Jessie," I said, "you make yourself wretched,
because you don't see things as they are. It's your own fault if you
are not happy. You say you have enjoyed this day."
"Oh, yes," she said, "no day like this; it never came before, it don't
return again. It dies to-night, but will never be forgotten."
"Why not live where you are? Why not have your home here by this lake,
and this mountain? His tastes are like yours, and yours like his; you
can live two lives here,--the forest of the red man around you--the
roof of the white one above you.
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