view.

The summer passed away; harvest had come and gone; the wheat and
maize, or Indian corn, was safely stored in the yard; the golden
pumpkins were gathered into their winter quarters, and the forests
glowed with the rich and varied tints of autumn. Preparations now
began to be made for a hunting excursion, and William Sullivan was
included in the number who were going to try their fortune on the
hunting-grounds beyond the river and the pine forests. He was bold,
active, and expert in the use of his rifle and woodman's hatchet, and
hitherto had always hailed the approach of this season with peculiar
enjoyment, and no fears respecting the not unusual attacks of the
Indians, who frequently waylaid such parties in other and not very
distant places, had troubled him.

But now, as the time of their departure drew near, strange misgivings
relative to his safety filled his mind, and his imagination was
haunted by the form of the Indian whom in the preceding summer he had
so harshly treated. On the eve of the day on which they were to start,
he made known his anxiety to his gentle wife, confessing at the same
time that his conscience had never ceased to reproach him for his
unkind behavior. He added, that since then all that he had learned in
his youth from his mother upon our duty to our neighbors had been
continually in his mind; thus increasing the burden of self-reproach,
by reminding him that his conduct was displeasing in the sight of God,
as well as cruel toward a suffering brother. Mary Sullivan heard her
husband in silence. When he had done, she laid her hand in his,
looking up into his face with a smile, which was yet not quite free
from anxiety, and then she told him what she had done when the Indian
fell down exhausted upon the ground, confessing at the same time that