itic air of cordiality, he wished his successful rival joy of his victory. "But now you've got the calash, lad, it's of no use to you," he added; "it will never make a sail, nor even an ensign. I'm thinking, Eau-douce, you'd no be sorry to see its value in good silver of the king?" "Money cannot buy it, lieutenant," returned Jasper whose eye lighted up with all the fire of success and joy. "I would rather have won this calash than have obtained fifty new suits of sails for the Scud!" "Hoot, hoot, lad! you are going mad like all the rest of them. I'd even venture to offer half a guinea for the trifle, rather than it should lie kicking about in the cabin of your cutter, and, in the end, become an ornament for the head of a squaw." Although Jasper did not know that the wary quartermaster had not offered half the actual cost of the prize, he heard the proposition with indifference. Shaking his head in the negative, he advanced towards the stage, where his approach excited a little commotion, the officers' ladies, one and all, having determined to accept the present, should the gallantry of the young sailor induce him to offer it. But Jasper's diffidence, no less than admiration for another, would have prevented him from aspiring to the honor of complimenting any whom he thought so much his superiors. Mabel," he said, "this prize is for you, unless 66 "Unless what, Jasper?" answered the girl, losing her own bashfulness in the natural and generous wish to relieve his embarrassment, though both reddened in a way to betray strong feeling. "Unless you may think too indifferently of it, because it is offered by one who may have ne right to believe his gift will be accepted." "I do accept it, Jasper; and it shall be a sign of the danger I have passed in your company, and of the gratitude I feel for your care of me- your care, and that of the Pathfinder." "Never mind me, never mind me," exclaimed the latter this is Jasper's luck and Jasper's gift; give him fu1l credit for both. My turn may come another day; mine and the quartermaster's, who seems to grudge the boy the calash, though what he can want of it, I cannot understand, for he has no wife." "And has Jasper Eau-douce a wife? Or have you a wife yoursel', Pathfinder? I may want it to help to get a wife, or as a memorial that I have had a wife, or as proof how much I admire the sex, or because it is a female garment, or for some other equally respectable motive. It's not the unreflecting that are the most prized by the thought ful, and there is no surer sign that a man made a goo husband to his first consort, let me tell you all, than to see him speedily looking around for a competent successor. The affections are good gifts from Providence, and they that have loved one faithfully, prove how much of this bounty has been lavished upon them, by loving another as soon as possible." "It may be so it may be so. I am no practitioner in such things, and cannot gainsay it. But Mabel, here, the sergeant's daughter, will give you full credit for the words. Come, Jasper, although our hands are out, let us see what the other lads can do with the rifle." Pathfinder and his companions retired, for the sports were about to proceed. The ladies, however, were not so much engrossed with rifle-shooting as to neglect the calash. It passed from hand to hand; the silk was felt, the fashion criticised, and the work examined, and divers opinions were privately ventured concerning the fitness of so handsome a thing's passing into the possession of a non-commissioned officer's child. "Perhaps you will be disposed to sell that calash, Mabel, when it has been a short time in your possession?" inquired the captain's lady. "Wear it, I should think, you never can." "I may not wear it, madam," returned our heroine mod estly, "but I should not like to part with it, either.” "I dare say Sergeant Dunham keeps you above the necessity of selling your clothes, child; but, at the salue time, it is money thrown away to keep an article of dress you can never wear." "I should be unwilling to part with the gift of a friend.” "But the young man himself will think all the better of you, for your prudence, after the triumph of the day is forgotten. It is a pretty and a becoming calash, and ought not to be thrown away." "I've no intention to throw it away, ma'am, and, if you please, would rather keep it." “As you will, child; girls of your age often overlook their real advantages. Remember, however, if you do deter. mine to dispose of the thing, that it is bespoke, and that I will not take it, if you ever even put it on your own head." 66 'Yes, ma'am," said Mabel, in the meekest voice imaginable, though her eyes looked like diamonds, and her cheeks reddened to the tints of two roses, as she placed the forbidden garmen over her well-turned shoulders, where she kept it a minute, as if to try its fitness, and then quietly removed it again. The remainder of the sports offered nothing of interest. The shooting was reasonably good, but the trials were all of a scale lower than those related, and the competitors were soon left to themselves. The ladies and most of the officers withdrew, and the remainder of the females soon followed their example. Mabel was returning along the low flat rocks that line the shore of the lake, dangling her pretty calash from a prettier finger, when Pathfinder met her. He carried the rifle which he had used that day, but his manner had less of the frank ease of the hunter about it than usual, while his eye seemed roving and uneasy. After a few unmeaning words concerning the noble sheet of water before them, he turned towards his companion with strong interest in his countenance, and said, Jasper earned that calash for you, Mabel, without much rial of his gifts." 'It was fairly done, Pathfinder." "No doubt, no doubt. The bullet passed neatly through the potato, and no man could have done more; though others might have done as much." "But no one did as much!" exclaimed Mabel, with ar animation that she instantly regretted, for she saw by the |