a rod or two in a silvery stream from its fountain, and then leaping down a miniature fall into a sort of natural basin, surrounded with rocks, expanded itself into a small pool, as clear as crystal.  Around the basin were gathered companies of such wood-flowers as love the water, conspicuous among which, both for number and beauty, were the yellow and orange blossoms of the elegant “jewels,” as boys call them.  Advancing to this little mirror, the female took a seat on one of the rocks, on the edge of the water, and bending over, appeared to contemplate, with no little satisfaction, what she beheld there; and to tell the truth, it was a pretty face, and justified some vanity.  Black hair and hazel eyes, red lips and blooming cheeks, and a well-formed person, composed a whole whereon the eye rested with pleasure.  Prudence, (you have guessed it was she,) after looking at the reflection of herself awhile, and smoothing down a stray tress or two, selected from the flowers in her hand some of the most beautiful, and humming a tune, commenced arranging them in her hair.  She was some little time about her toilette, either because her taste was difficult to be suited, or because her employment afforded an excuse for looking at what was certainly more attractive than the flowers themselves.  She was so long about their arrangement, that she had hardly completed it, and had time to twist her neck into only five or six attitudes, to see how they became her, when a rustling was heard in the bushes, and immediately the Assistant Spikeman stood by her side.

“Verily, sweet maiden,” he said, “thine eyes outshine the stars, which will soon twinkle in the sky, and the flowers around thee pine with envy at beholding a blush lovelier than their own.”

A sudden and unpleasant interruption put a stop to the fine speeches of the debauched hypocrite, for he had hardly concluded the sentence, when, without a warning, a strong hand grasped his throat, and he was hurled with irresistible violence to the ground.  As the Assistant was lying prostrate on his face, he could hear Prudence, with screams, each fainter than the former, running in the direction of the settlement, while, without a word being spoken, his arms were violently forced upon his back and bound, an operation which his struggles were unable to prevent.  This being performed, he was suffered to rise, and, upon gaining his feet, he saw himself in the presence of Sassacus.  The blood fled the cheeks and lips of Spikeman as he beheld the savage, and felt that he was in the hands of one whom, without cause, he had injured, and who belonged to that wild race, with whom revenge is a duty as well as a pleasure.  His knees trembled, and he was in danger of falling to the ground, as the thought of death, whereof horrid torments should be the precursors, flashed through his mind.  But the trepidation was only momentary, and soon, with the hardihood of his audacious nature, he steeled himself to dare whatever should follow—­and it marks the character of the man, that the bitterness of the moment was aggravated at the thought of the vanishing of the fond dreams with which he had idly fed his imagination.