While she thus mourned from the bottom of her heart, the thought came to her how she would feel in case her father was brought home in the same way.  Mitsha was a good child, and Tyope had always treated her not only with affection but with kindness.  He gave her many precious things, as the Indian calls the bright-coloured pebbles, shell beads, base turquoises, crystals, etc., with which he decorates his body.  He liked to see his daughter shine among the daughters of the tribe.  With him it was speculation, not affection; but Mitsha knew nothing of this, and felt that in case her parent should ever be borne back to this house dead, and placed on the floor before her covered with gore, she must feel just as Okoya felt now.  And yet the dead man was only his grandparent.  No, it was not possible for him to be as sad as she would be in case Tyope should meet with such a fate.  And then she wondered whether the whole tribe would regret her father’s death as much as they regretted the loss of Topanashka.  Something within her told that it would not.  She had already noticed that Tyope was not liked; but why, she knew not.  Okoya himself had intimated as much.  She knew that the boy shunned her father; and her attachment to Okoya had become so deep that his utterances began to modify her feelings toward her own parents.

If she would sorrow and grieve for her father’s loss, if Okoya was mourning over his grandfather’s demise, how must the child of the murdered man, of such a man as Topanashka, feel?  His only child was a woman like herself.  A true woman always feels for her sex and sympathizes with other women’s grief; and besides, that woman was the mother of the youth who had won her heart.  Okoya had told her a great deal about his mother,—­how good she was and how content she was to see him and her become one.  The girl was anxious to know his mother, but a visit to a prospective mother-in-law is by no means an unimportant step.  If it is accompanied by a present it bears the character of an official acceptance of courtship.  That step Mitsha was afraid as yet to take; it was too early; there were too many contingencies in the way.

Still she longed to go to Say Koitza now.  But visits of condolence are not in vogue among Indians as long as there is loud mourning, except at the house where the mourning is going on.  How much Mitsha would have given to be permitted to go to Say, sit down quietly in a corner, and modestly and without speaking a word, weep in her company.  At the same time she felt another longing.  Since the night of the murder Okoya had of course not been to see her, and she naturally longed to meet him also in this hour of sadness and trial.  Once when she had gone to the brook for water, Zashue had crossed her path; but he looked so dark and frowning that she did not venture even to greet him.