Was she, or is she a
red maiden of the wild prairies; or dwells she in a mansion surrounded
with the appliances of wealth, reclining on cushions of velvet and
sleeping on a bed of down, canopied with a pavilion of damask satin
fretted with stars of silver; with handmaids to subserve and minister
to every want?" And again the wild laugh rang to the echo among the
hills and dense forests all around. "O! I see I have tuned the wrong
chord and have made discord, not music in your mind. Shall we return?
You are not yet strong, and your weakness I have made weaker, because I
have disturbed the fountain of your heart and brought up painful
memories?"
"You are strange," said her companion, "and guess wide of the mark. The
untutored savage is only a romance at a distance--the reality of their
presence a disgusting fact. They are wild, untamable, and wicked,
without sentiment or sympathy, cruel and murderous; disgusting in their
habits and brutal in their passions."
"And yet, sir, the stories which come down to us of these so quietly
sleeping here are full of romance and poetry.
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