good Catholic; and they both forthwith applied themselves to her conversion. This was a longer process than they anticipated. It was some time before We-no-na acquired sufficient French to understand their purpose; and then she had so many posing questions to ask, that the learned missionary frequently thought she must be especially instigated by Satan in the unlooked-for difficulties she raised.
At length the maiden's intelligence seemed to pierce to the pith of the matter, relieved of all its bewildering husks, forms, and wrappings. The beauty and holiness of Christian morality dawned upon her benighted soul, and reconciled her fully and cordially to the Christian religion. It was to her, in truth, a revelation, and was received in earnestness and faith. She was baptized and married.
The party returned soon after to Montreal. La Crosse became the chief man of one of the beautiful villages on the St. Lawrence. We-no-na adapted herself eagerly to the habits and tastes of civilized life. Sometimes, as the happy pair sat on their broad piazza amid roses and honeysuckle, with their little half-breeds playing before them, La Crosse, to make his wife's eyes flash with their old barbarian fire, would express a pretended preference for the freedom of savage-life, and, sighing, wish that they were among the Dahcotahs; a wish which never failed to call forth an indignant rebuke from We-no-na. On one occasion her husband, to please some wandering Iroquois, daubed his face with ochre, grease, and charcoal, threw a blanket over his shoulders, decorated his head with feathers, took a scalping-knife in one hand and a tomahawk in the other, and, with genuine French versatility, joined in a war-dance. But when he found that his disguise disturbed We-no-na, so that she wept passionately, he threw it aside, never to resume it.
A proud woman was she, when, with her two boys and a little girl, La Crosse first drove her up, in a painted sledge, to the little Catholic church where Sunday service was held. No wonder that the emotion of gratitude surpassed all others as she knelt in prayer. A still prouder woman was she, when her children could read and write, and one of her boys attained such proficiency on the bass-viol that
