knowed you; could kiss the ground on which you have trod, and forgets all the joys of his calling to think of you, and of the delight of gazing at your beauty, and in listening to your voice, would you then have consented to marry me?"

Mabel could not have answered this question if she would; but, though her face was buried in her hands, the tint of the rushing blood was visible between the openings, and the suffusion seemed to impart itself to her very fingers. Still nature asserted her power, for there was a single instant when the astonished, almost terrified girl stole a glance at Jasper, as if distrusting Pathfinder's history of his feelings, read the truth of all he said in that furtive look, and instantly concealed her face again, as if she would hide it from observation for

ever.

"Take time to think, Mabel," the guide continued, "for it is a solemn thing to accept one man for a husband, while the thoughts and wishes lead to another. Jasper and I have talked this matter over, freely and like old friends, and though I always knowed that we viewed most things pretty much alike, I could n't have thought that we regarded any particular object with the very same eyes, as it might be, until we opened our minds to each other about you. Now, Jasper owns that the very first time he beheld you, he thought you the sweetest and winningest creatur' he had ever met; that your voice sounded like murmuring water in his ears; that he fancied his sails were your garments, fluttering in the wind; that your laugh haunted him in his sleep; and that agin and agin has he started up affrighted, because he has fancied some one wanted to force you out of the Scud, where he imagined you had taken up your abode. Nay, the lad has even acknowledged that he often weeps at the thought that you are likely to spend your days with another and not with him."

"Jasper!"

"It's solemn truth, Mabel, and it's right you should know it. Now stand up, and choose atween us. I do

believe Eau-douce loves you as well as I do myself; he has tried to persuade me that he loves you better, but that I will not allow, for I do not think it possible; but I will own the boy loves you, heart and soul, and he has a good right to be heard. The sergeant left me your protector, and not your tyrant. I told him that I would be a father to you, as well as a husband, and it seems to me no feeling father would deny his child this small privilege. Stand up, Mabel, therefore, and speak your thoughts as freely as if I were the sergeant himself, seeking your good, and nothing else."

Mabel dropped her hands, arose, and stood face to face with her two suitors, though the flush that was on her cheek was feverish, the evidence of excitement rather than of shame.

"What would you have, Pathfinder?" she asked. "Have I not already promised my poor father to do all you desire?

"Then I desire this. Here I stand, a man of the forest, and of little l'arning, though I fear with an ambition beyond my desarts, and I'll do my endivors to do justice to both sides. In the first place, it is allowed that so far as feelings in your behalf are consarned, we love you just the same. Jasper thinks his feelings must be the strongest, but this I cannot say, in honesty, for it does n't seem to me that it can be true; else I would frankly and freely confess it, I would. So in this particular, Mabel, we are here before you on equal tarms. As for myself, being the oldest, I'll first say what little can be produced in my favor, as well as agin it. As a hunter, I do think there is no man near the lines that can outdo me. If venison or bear's meat, or even birds and fish, should ever be scarce in our cabin, it would be more likely to be owing to natur' and Providence, than to any fault of mine. In short, it does seem to me that the woman who depended on me would never be likely to want for food. But I'm fearful ignorant!. It's true, I speak several tongues, such as they be, while I'm very far from being expart at my own. Then, my years

are greater than your own, Mabel; and the circumstance that I was so long the sergeant's comrade can be no great merit in your eyes. I wish, too, I was more comely,

I do; but we are all as natur' made us, and the last thing that a man ought to lament, except on very special occasions, is his looks. When all is remembered, age, looks, l'arning, and habits, Mabel, conscience tells me I ought to confess that I'm altogether unfit for you, if not downright unworthy; and I would give up the hope this minute, I would, if I didn't feel something pulling at my heart-strings which seems hard to undo."

"Pathfinder! noble, generous Pathfinder!" cried our heroine, seizing his hand, and kissing it with a species of holy reverence, "you do yourself injustice; you forget my poor father and your promise; you do not know me!"

"Now, here's Jasper," continued the guide, without allowing the girl's caresses to win him from his purpose; "with him, the case is different. In the way of providing, as in that of loving, there's not much to choose atween us, for the lad is frugal, industrious, and careful. Then he is quite a scholar - knows the tongue of the Frenchers reads many books, and some, I know, that you like to read yourself can understand you at all times, which, perhaps, is more than I can say for myself." "What of all this?" interrupted Mabel, impatiently; "why speak of it now why speak of it at all?” "Then the lad has a manner of letting his thoughts be known, that I fear I can never equal. If there's anything on 'arth that would make my tongue bold and persuading, Mabel, I do think it's yourself; and yet in our late conversations Jasper has outdone me, even on this point, in a way to make me ashamed of myself. He has told me how simple you were, and how truehearted, and kind-hearted; and how you looked down. upon vanities, for though you might be the wife of more than one officer, as he thinks, that you cling to feeling, and would rather be true to yourself and natur' than a colonel's lady. He fairly made my blood warm, he did,

when he spoke of your having beauty without seeming ever to have looked upon it, and the manner in which you moved about like a young faan, so nat'ral and graceful-like, without knowing it; and the truth and justice of your idees, and the warmth and generosity of your heart"

"Jasper!" interrupted Mabel, giving way to feelings that had gathered an ungovernable force by being so long pent, and falling into the young man's willing arms, weeping like a child, and almost as helpless. 'Jasper! - Jasper! why have you kept this from me?

The answer of Eau-douce was not very intelligible, nor was the murmured dialogue that followed remarkable for coherency. But the language of affection is easily understood. The hour that succeeded passed like a very few minutes of ordinary life, so far as a computation of time was concerned; and when Mabel recollected herself, and bethought her of the existence of others, her uncle was pacing the cutter's deck in great impatience, and wondering why Jasper should be losing so much of a favorable wind. Her first thought was of him who was so likely to feel the recent betrayal of her real emotions. "Oh, Jasper!" she exclaimed, like one suddenly selfconvicted, "the Pathfinder!"

Eau-douce fairly trembled, not with unmanly apprehension, but with the painful conviction of the pang he had given his friend; and he looked in all directions in the expectation of seeing his person. But Pathfinder had withdrawn, with a tact and a delicacy that might have done credit to the sensibility and breeding of a courtier. For several minutes the two lovers sat silently waiting his return, uncertain what properly required of them, under circumstances so marked and so peculiar. At length they beheld their friend advancing slowly towards them, with a thoughtful and even a pensive air.

"I now understand what you meant, Jasper, by speaking without a tongue, and hearing without an ear," he said, when close enough to the tree to be heard. "Yes, I understand it now, I do, and a very pleasant sort of

discourse it is, when one can hold it with Mabel Dunham. Ah's me! I told the sergeant I was n't fit for her; that I was too old, too ignorant, and too wild-like-but he would have it otherwise."

Jasper and Mabel sat, resembling Milton's picture of our first parents, when the consciousness of sin first laid its leaden weight on their souls. Neither spoke, neither even moved; though both at that moment fancied they could part with their new-found happiness, in order to restore their friend to his peace of mind. Jasper was pale as death; but, in Mabel, maiden modesty had caused the blood to mantle on her cheeks, until their bloom was heightened to a richness that was scarce equaled in her hours of light-hearted buoyancy and joy. As the feeling which in her sex always accompanies the security of love returned, threw its softness and tenderness over her countenance, she was singularly beautiful. Pathfinder gazed at her with an intentness he did not endeavor to conceal, and then he fairly laughed in his own way, and with a sort of wild exultation, as men that are untutored are wont to express their delight. This momentary indulgence, however, was expiated by the pang that followed the sudden consciousness that this glorious young creature was lost to him forever. It required a full minute for this simple-minded being to recover from the shock of this conviction; and then he recovered his dignity of manner, speaking with gravity, almost with solemnity.

"I have always known, Mabel Dunham, that men have their gifts," he said; "but I'd forgotten that it did not belong to mine to please the young and beautiful and l'arned. I hope the mistake has been no very heavy sin; and if it was, I've been heavily punished for it, I have. Nay, Mabel, I know what you'd say, but it's unnecessary; I feel it all, and that is as good as if I heard it all. I've had a bitter hour, Mabel I've had a very bitter hour, lad".

"Hour!" echoed Mabel, as the other first used the word, the telltale ich had begun to ebb towards