around like an elk that had lost her mate.

"Jennie," said her sister, when they were alone, "you
have not been telling the truth. You did not get astray
on the prairie. Somebody has been courting you, and you
are in love with him."

"I am in love; and it is true that some one has been
courting me. I had intended to tell you all about it, my
heart is so full. Now can you tell me who may my lover
be?"

"I hope, Jennie," and the sister's eyes showed a blending
of severity and sorrow, "that it is not Alexander."

"It is Alexander. Why should it not be? Is he not handsome,
and gentle, and good? Wherefore then not he?"

"My God, do you know what such an alliance would cost
you, would cost us all? Marriage with a half-breed would
be a degradation; and a stain upon the whole family that
never could be wiped out. O my poor unfortunate sister,
ruin is what such a marriage would mean. Just that, my
darling sister, and no less."

"I care not for that. I love him with all my heart and
soul, and pledged myself to-night a hundred times to be
his. I never can love another man; and he only shall
possess me. What care I for the degradation of which you
speak, as measured against the crowning misery, or the