on a bear-skin, I remember, reading by the light of the flames, when my
aunt brought the baby-girl in.

During the week that she had been with us, I had been too much terrified
by the menace of invasion to take much interest in her, and Mr. Stewart
had scarcely seen her. He smiled now, and held out his hands to her. She
went to him very freely, and looked him over with a wise, wondering
expression when he took her on his knee. It could be seen that she was
very pretty. Her little white rows of teeth were as regular and pearly as
the upper kernels on an ear of fresh sweet corn. She had a ribbon in her
long, glossy hair, and her face shone pleasantly with soap. My aunt had
made her some shoes out of deer-hide, which Mr. Stewart chuckled over.

"What a people the Dutch are!" he said, with a smile. "The child is
polished like the barrel of a gun. What's your name, little one?"

The girl made no answer, from timidity I suppose.

"Has she no name? I should think she would have one," said I. It was the
first time I had ever spoken to Mr. Stewart without having been addressed.
But my new position in the house seemed to entitle me to this much
liberty, for once.

"No," he replied, "your aunt is not able to discover that she has a
name--except that she calls herself Pulkey, or something like that."

"That is not a good name to the ear," I said, in comment.

"No; doubtless it is a nickname. I have thought," he added, musingly, "of
calling her Desideria."