and
unteached in the ways of books and other knowledge; but we've our good
p'ints, as well as our bad ones. An honest heart is not to be despised,
gal, even though it be not varsed in all the niceties that please the
female fancy."

"You, Deerslayer! And do you--can you, for an instant, suppose I place
you by the side of Harry March? No, no, I am not so far gone in dullness
as that. No one--man or woman--could think of naming your honest heart,
manly nature, and simple truth, with the boisterous selfishness, greedy
avarice, and overbearing ferocity of Harry March. The very best that can
be said of him, is to be found in his name of Hurry Skurry, which, if it
means no great harm, means no great good. Even my father, following his
feelings with the other, as he is doing at this moment, well knows the
difference between you. This I know, for he said as much to me, in plain
language."

Judith was a girl of quick sensibilities and of impetuous feelings; and,
being under few of the restraints that curtail the manifestations of
maiden emotions among those who are educated in the habits of civilized
life, she sometimes betrayed the latter with a feeling that was so
purely natural as to place it as far above the wiles of coquetry as it
was superior to its heartlessness. She had now even taken one of the
hard hands of the hunter and pressed it between both her own, with a
warmth and earnestness that proved how sincere was her language. It
was perhaps fortunate that she was checked by the very excess of her
feelings, since the same power might have urged her on to avow all that
her father had said--the old man not having been satisfied with making a
comparison favorable to Deerslayer, as between the hunter and Hurry, but
having actually, in his blunt rough way, briefly advised his daughter to
cast off the latter entirely, and to think of the former as a husband.
Judith would not willingly have said this to any other man, but
there was so much confidence awakened by the guileless simplicity of
Deerslayer, that one of her nature found it a constant temptation to
overstep the bounds of habit. She went no further, however, immediately
relinquishing the hand, and falling back on a reserve that was more
suited to her sex, and, indeed, to her natural modesty.

"Thankee, Judith, thankee with all my heart," returned the hunter, whose
humility prevented him from placing any flattering interpretation on
either the conduct or the language