find it hard to overlook them, and sometimes I swear I'll never visit
the lake again."

"Which is the reason that you always come back? Nothing is ever made
more sure by swearing about it."

"Ah, Deerslayer, you are a novelty in these particulars; keeping as true
to education as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case
is different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a
wish to swear about it. If you know'd all that I know consarning Judith,
you'd find a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers
sometimes stray over to the lake, from the forts on the Mohawk, to fish
and hunt, and then the creatur' seems beside herself! You can see in the
manner which she wears her finery, and the airs she gives herself with
the gallants."

"That is unseemly in a poor man's darter," returned Deerslayer gravely,
"the officers are all gentry, and can only look on such as Judith with
evil intentions."

"There's the unsartainty, and the damper! I have my misgivings about a
particular captain, and Jude has no one to blame but her own folly, if
I'm right. On the whole, I wish to look upon her as modest and becoming,
and yet the clouds that drive among these hills are not more unsartain.
Not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes upon her since she was a
child, and yet her airs, with two or three of these officers, are
extinguishers!"

"I would think no more of such a woman, but turn my mind altogether to
the forest; that will not deceive you, being ordered and ruled by a hand
that never wavers."

"If you know'd Judith, you would see how much easier it is to say this
than it would be to do it. Could I bring my mind to be easy about the
officers, I would carry the gal off to the Mohawk by force, make her
marry me in spite of her whiffling, and leave old Tom to the care
of Hetty, his other child, who, if she be not as handsome or as
quick-witted as her sister, is much the most dutiful."

"Is there another bird in the same nest!" asked Deerslayer, raising his
eyes with a species of half-awakened curiosity, "the Delawares spoke to
me only of one."

"That's nat'ral enough, when Judith Hutter and Hetty Hutter are in
question. Hetty is only comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is
such another as is not to be found atween this and the sea: Judith is as
full of wit, and talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while poor
Hetty is at the best but 'compass' meant us."

"Anan?" inquired,