did not know the natur' of Jasper Western's feelings towards you?"

“ Pathfinder !”—and Mabel's cheek now paled to the livid hue of death; then it flushed to the tint of crimson; and her whole frame shuddered. Pathfinder, however, was too intent on his own object, to notice this agitation; and Eaudouce had hidden his face in his hands, in time to shut out its view.

"I've been talking with the lad; and, on comparing his dreams with my dreams, his feelings with my feelings, and his wishes with my wishes, I fear we think too much alike, concerning you, for both of us to be very happy.”

“Pathfinder-you forget-you should remember that we are betrothed!" said Mabel, hastily, and in a voice so low, that it required acute attention in the listeners to catch the syllables. Indeed, the last word was not quite intelligible to the guide, and he confessed his ignorance by the usual"Anan?”

"You forget that we are to be married; and such allusions are improper, as well as painful.”

"Every thing is proper that is right, Mabel; and every thing is right that leads to justice and fair dealing: though it is painful enough, as you say; as I find on trial, I do. Now, Mabel, had you known that Eau-douce thinks of you in this way, maybe you never would have consented to be married to one as old and as uncomely as I am.”

"Why this cruel trial, Pathfinder? To what can all this lead? Jasper Western thinks no such thing: he says nothing-he feels nothing."

“Mabel !” burst from out of the young man's lips, in a way to betray the uncontrollable nature of his emotions, though he uttered not another syllable.

Mabel buried her face in both her hands; and the two sat like a pair of guilty beings, suddenly detected in the commission of some crime that involved the happiness of a common patron. At that instant, perhaps, Jasper himself was inclined to deny his passion, through an extreme unwillingness to grieve his friend; while Mabe!, on whom this positive announcement of a fact that she had rather unconsciously hoped than believed, came so unexpectedly, felt her mind momentarily bewildered; and she scarce knew whether to

weep or to rejoice. Still she was the first to speak; since Eau-douce could utter naught that would be disingenuous, or that would pain his friend.

"Pathfinder," she said, "you talk wildly. Why mention this at all?"

"Well, Mabel, if I talk wildly, I am half wild, you know; by natur', I fear, as well as by habit." As he said this, he endeavoured to laugh in his usual noiseless way, but the effect produced a strange and discordant sound; and it appeared nearly to choke him. "Yes, I must be wild; I'll not attempt to deny it."

"Dearest Pathfinder!-my best, almost my only friend! you cannot, do not think I intended to say that!" interrupted Mabel, almost breathless in her haste to relieve his mortification-"If courage, truth, nobleness of soul and conduct, unyielding principles and a hundred other excellent qualities can render any man respectable, esteemed, or beloved, your claims are inferior to those of no other human being."

"What tender and bewitching voices they have, Jasper !" resumed the guide, now laughing freely and naturally"Yes, natur' seems to have made them on purpose to sing in our ears, when the music of the woods is silent! But we must come to a right understanding, we must. I ask you again, Mabel, if you had known that Jasper Western loves you as well as I do, or better perhaps though that is scarce possible, that in his dreams he sees your face in the water of the lake; that he talks to you, and of you, in his sleep; fancies all that is beautiful like Mabel Dunham, and all that is good and virtuous; believes he never knowed happiness until he 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 sho 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 couldn'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 winningestest 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, ag'in and ag'in, 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."

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Jasper !"

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

our neighbourhood. There is a beautiful spot, about fifty miles west of the garrison, that I had chosen in my mind, for my own place of abode; and there is an excellent harbour about ten leagues this side of it, where you could run in and out, with the cutter, at any leisure minute; and I'd even fancied you, and your wife, in possession of the one place, and Mabel and I in possession of t'other. We should be just a healthy hunt apart; and if the Lord ever intends any of his creatures to be happy on 'arth, none could be happier than we four."

"You forget, my friend," answered Jasper, taking the guide's hand, and forcing a friendly smile, "that I have no fourth person to love and cherish; and I much doubt if I ever shall love any other, as I love you and Mabel."

"Thank 'ee, boy; I thank you with all my heart-but what you call love for Mabel, is only friendship, like, and a very different thing from what I feel. Now, instead of sleeping as sound as natur' at midnight, as I used to could, I dream nightly of Mabel Dunham. The young does sport before me; and when I raise Killdeer, in order to take a little venison, the animals look back, and it seems as if they all had Mabel's sweet countenance, laughing in my face, and looking as if they said, 'shoot me if you dare!' Then I hear her soft voice calling out among the birds as they sing; and no later than the last nap I took, I bethought me, in fancy, of going over the Niagara, holding Mabel in my arms, rather than part from her. The bitterest moments I've ever known, were them in which the devil, or some Mingo conjurer, perhaps, has just put into my head to fancy in dreams that Mabel is lost to me, by some unaccountable calamity-either by changefulness, or by violence."

“Õh! Pathfinder, if you think this so bitter in a dream, what must it be to one who feels its reality, and knows it all to be true-true-true. So true, as to leave no hope; to leave nothing but despair!"

These words burst from Jasper, as a fluid pours from the vessel that has been suddenly broken. They were uttered involuntarily, almost unconsciously, but with a truth and feeling, that carried with them the instant conviction of their deep sincerity Pathfinder started, gazed at his friend for quite a minute, like one bewildered; and then it was, that, in

despite of all his simplicity, the truth gleamed upon him All know how corroborating proofs crowd upon the mind, as soon as it catches a direct clue to any hitherto unsuspected fact; how rapidly the thoughts flow, and premises tend to their just conclusions, under such circumstances. Our hero was so confiding by nature, so just, and so much disposed to imagine that all his friends wished him the same happiness as he wished them, that, until this unfortunate moment, a suspicion of Jasper's attachment for Mabel had never been awakened in his bosom. He was, however, now too experienced in the emotions that characterize the passion; and the burst of feeling in his companion was too violent, and too natural, to leave any further doubt on the subject. The feeling that first followed this change of opinion, was one of deep humility and exquisite pain. He bethought him of Jasper's youth, his higher claims to personal appearance, and all the general probabilities that such a suitor would be more agreeable to Mabel, than he could possibly be, himself. Then the noble rectitude of mind, for which the man was so distinguished, asserted its power; it was sustained by his rebuked manner of thinking of himself, and all that habitual deference for the rights and feelings of others, which appeared to be inbred in his very nature. Taking the arm of Jasper, he led him to a log, where he compelled the young man to seat himself, by a sort of irresistible exercise of his iron muscles, and where he placed himself at his side.

The instant his feelings had found vent, Eau-douce was both alarmed at, and ashamed of, their violence. He would have given all he possessed on earth, could the last three minutes be recalled, but he was too frank by disposition, and too much accustomed to deal ingenuously by his friend, to think a moment, of attempting further concealment, or of any evasion of the explanation that he knew was about to be demanded. Even while he trembled in anticipation of what was about to follow, he never contemplated equivocation.

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Jasper," Pathfinder commenced, in a tone so solemn as to thrill on every nerve in his listener's body, "this has surprised me! You have kinder feelings towards Mabel, than I had thought; and, unless my own mistaken vanity and consait have cruelly deceived me, I pity you, boy, from my soul, I do! Yes, I think, I know how to pity any one,