less cruel, and my health returned.  Again something like a calm came over my life, and I began to feel hopeful once more.  The next spring you, Lucia, my light and comfort, were born, and from that time I had double cause both for hope and fear.  The birth of a daughter, however, is no cause of joy to an Indian father; if you had been a boy you would have been (or so I fancy) far less consolation to me, but to Christian you would have been more welcome.  He was with me when you were born, but the very next day he left the island for three or four weeks, and from the time of his next return all my former sufferings recommenced.  Often in terror for your life, I carried you to Mary Wanita and implored her to keep you until your father was gone; and even in his absence I scarcely dared to fall asleep with you in my arms, lest he should come in unexpectedly and snatch you from me.

“When you were about a year old Mr. Strafford married.  His wife, who had already heard of me before her marriage, became the dearest of friends to me; with her I could always leave you in safety, and with her I began to feel again the solace of female society and sympathy.  She is dead, as you know, long ago, and her little daughter died at the same time, of a fever which broke out on the island two or three years after we left it.

“Two years passed after your birth, and things had gone on in much the same way.  My husband never ceased to urge me to try to obtain money from England, and in the meantime he continually took from me the little I could earn by my work, for which Mrs. Strafford found me a sale in different towns of the province.

“Do not misjudge me, Lucia.  I tell you these things only to justify what I did later, and my long concealment even from you of the truth of my history.

“But when you were about two years old your father left the island, and did not return.  The longest stay he had ever made before was a month, and when two passed, and I neither saw nor heard of him, I began to feel uneasy.  Mr. Strafford made many inquiries for me, but we only heard of his having been seen shortly after he left home, and quite failed in learning where he had gone.  Time went on, and, after the first anxious and troubled feelings passed off, I allowed myself to enjoy the undisturbed quiet, and to be happy as any other mother might be with her child.  I had a whole year of such peace; you grew hardy and merry, and were the pet and plaything of the whole village, learning to talk the strangest mixed language, and showing at that time none of the terror of Indians which I have seen in you since then.