Your mother is a
Blackfoot."
As the woman spoke slowly and with many pauses, the girl's mood changed,
and there came into her eyes a strange, dark look deeper than anger. She
listened with a sudden patience which stilled the agitation in her breast
and gave a little touch of rigidity to her figure. Her eyes withdrew from
the wild storm without and gravely settled on her mother's face, and with
the Indian woman's last words understanding pierced, but did not dispel,
the sombre and ominous look in her eyes. There was silence for 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.
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