The judge was
silent; but a close observer might have seen a slight contraction of
the lips, and a slighter closing of the eyes. A moment after Alice
entered the room, and there was a glance exchanged between her brother
and herself. There was in it a meaning only for themselves.
"You have been riding, sir," he said to his guest, "and my sister tells
me to the mound at the White Apple village. To those curious in such
legends as are connected with its history, it is an interesting spot.
All I know in relation to these, I acquired from a dreamy and solitary
man employed by my father to fit myself and brother for college. He
read French, and was fond of tracing all he could find in the writings
of the historians of the first settlement of Louisiana and Mississippi,
and of the history, habits, and customs of the aborigines of the
country. He knew something of the adventures of De Soto and La Salle,
and something of the traditions of the Natchez. He was a melancholy
man, and perished by his own hand in the chamber that you occupy. My
sister is curious in such matters, and from her researches in some old
musty volumes she has found in the possession of an old European
family, she has made quite a history of the Natchez, and from the old
servants much of that of the first white or English occupants of this
section.
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