“E haere ana ahau ki a Huria (I am going to Judaea),” she says. And Judaea is the name of Pipi’s own kainga!
“Kia Huria! and you know to speak the Maori!” she exclaims, startled into consternation.
“Only a very little as yet,” replies the girl. “But Miria is teaching me.”
“Miria! which Miria?” cries Pipi, in an agony of foreboding.
“Why, Miria Piripi, Colonel Cameron’s coachman’s wife—your Miria, isn’t she?” says this monster, with a sudden smile. “She has told me about you, often.”
The truant who should suddenly see his captured “bully” pull the hook out of its jaws in order to plunge it in his own, might very well feel as Pipi felt at this frightful moment. True enough, she had often heard Miria speak of the pakeha lady who came to visit Mrs. Cameron and was “always so interested in the natives;” and with the greatest care she had always kept out of her way, for Pipi had her pride—she resented being made into a show. And now———!
“Yes, and I have often seen you, too, though you may not have seen me,” pursued the relentless pakeha. “You, and little Hana and Himi. Where are Hana and Himi now? I shall be sure to tell Miria I’ve met you,” she finished brightly.
Alas, alas for Pipi’s sport! The fish had caught the fisher, and with a vengeance. She collected her scattering wits, and met the pakeha’s eye with a stony stare, for she came of a princely race; but cold, too, as a stone, lay the heart within her breast.
The heart of the pakeha, however, had also its
