Northern Lights, Volume 2. by Gilbert Parker
page 32 of 96 (33%)
page 32 of 96 (33%)
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a moment, and then she spoke almost as evenly as her mother had done.
"I will tell you everything. You are my mother, and I love you; but you will not see the truth. When my father took you from the lodges and brought you here, it was the end of the Indian life. It was for you to go on with him, but you would not go. I was young, but I saw, and I said that in all things I would go with him. I did not know that it would be hard, but at school, at the very first, I began to understand. There was only one, a French girl--I loved her--a girl who said to me, 'You are as white as I am, as anyone, and your heart is the same, and you are beautiful.' Yes, Manette said I was beautiful." She paused a moment, a misty, far-away look came into her eyes, her fingers clasped and unclasped, and she added: "And her brother, Julien,--he was older,--when he came to visit Manette, he spoke to me as though I was all white, and was good to me. I have never forgotten, never. It was five years ago, but I remember him. He was tall and strong, and as good as Manette--as good as Manette. I loved Manette, but she suffered for me, for I was not like the others, and my ways were different--then. I had lived up there on the Warais among the lodges, and I had not seen things--only from my father, and he did so much in an Indian way. So I was sick at heart, and sometimes I wanted to die; and once--But there was Manette, and she would laugh and sing, and we would play together, and I would speak French and she would speak English, and I learned from her to forget the Indian ways. What were they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on to a better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche pouch to--to this." She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver mesh hanging at her waist. "When your eyes are opened you must go on, you |
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