What if this busy, searching, man-devouring press, which has compelled me to add to this narrative, or live and die misunderstood, should discover after all that this little lady is only the old Doctor's daughter sent down to the city in my care to be educated?
What will become of her? The poor little waif, when I look into her great wondering eyes, I fancy she is a little rabbit, startled and frightened from the forest into the clearing, where she knows not whether to return or bound forward, and so sits still and looks in wonderment around her. A little waif is she, blown like some strange bird from out the forest into a strange and uncertain land.
Will she succeed in the new scene? Poor child, the chances are against her. Only fancy yourself the last one of your race, compelled to seek out and live with another and not an over-friendly people. And then you would be always thinking in spite of yourself; the heart would be full of memories ; the soul would not take root in the new soil.
How lost and how out of place she must feel! Poor little lady, she will never hear the voices of her childhood any more. There is no one living now to speak her language.
Touch her gently, Fate, for she is so alone ! she is the last of the children of Shasta.
CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
