the lake, Hetty.«
    »Certainly. Mother is dead; father is gone a-trapping, and Judith and I stay
at home. What's your name?«
    »That's a question more easily asked than it is answered, young woman,
seeing that I'm so young, and yet have borne more names than some of the
greatest chiefs in all America.«
    »But you've got a name - you don't throw away one name, before you come
honestly by another?«
    »I hope not, gal - I hope not. My names have come nat'rally, and I suppose
the one I bear now, will be of no great lasting, since the Delawares seldom
settle on a man's ra'al title, until such time as he has an opportunity of
showing his true natur', in the council, or on the warpath; which has never
behappened me; seeing firstly, because I'm not born a red skin and have no right
to sit in their councillings, and am much too humble to be called on for
opinions from the great of my own colour; and, secondly, because this is the
first war that has befallen in my time, and no inimy has yet inroaded far enough
into the colony, to be reached by an arm even longer than mine.«
    »Tell me your names,« added Hetty, looking up at him, artlessly, »and maybe
I'll tell you your character.«
    »There is some truth in that, I'll not deny, though it often fails. Men are
deceived in other men's characters, and frequently give 'em names they by no
means desarve. You can see the truth of this in the Mingo names, which in their
own tongue signify the same things as the Delaware names - at least, so they
tell me, for I know little of that tribe unless it be by report, - and no one
can say they are as honest, or as upright a nation. I put no great dependence,
therefore, on names.«
    »Tell me all your names,« repeated the girl, earnestly, for her mind was too
simple to separate things from professions, and she did attach importance to a
name; »I want to know what to think of you.«
    »Well, sartain; I've no objection, and you shall hear them all. In the first
place, then, I'm christian, and white born, like yourself, and my parents had a