knows what changes affection for a good husband
can make in a woman's heart. I don't think, child, I have even now the
same love for finery I once had."

"It would be a pity, Judith, if you did think of clothes, over your
parents' graves! We will never quit this spot, if you say so, and will
let Hurry go where he pleases."

"I am willing enough to consent to the last, but cannot answer for the
first, Hetty. We must live, in future, as becomes respectable young
women, and cannot remain here, to be the talk and jest of all the rude
and foul tongu'd trappers and hunters that may come upon the lake. Let
Hurry go by himself, and then I'll find the means to see Deerslayer,
when the future shall be soon settled. Come, girl, the sun has set,
and the Ark is drifting away from us; let us paddle up to the scow, and
consult with our friends. This night I shall look into the chest, and
to-morrow shall determine what we are to do. As for the Hurons, now we
can use our stores without fear of Thomas Hutter, they will be easily
bought off. Let me get Deerslayer once out of their hands, and a single
hour shall bring things to an understanding."

Judith spoke with decision, and she spoke with authority, a habit she
had long practised towards her feeble-minded sister. But, while thus
accustomed to have her way, by the aid of manner and a readier command
of words, Hetty occasionally checked her impetuous feelings and hasty
acts by the aid of those simple moral truths that were so deeply
engrafted in all her own thoughts and feelings; shining through both
with a mild and beautiful lustre that threw a sort of holy halo around
so much of what she both said and did. On the present occasion, this
healthful ascendancy of the girl of weak intellect, over her of a
capacity that, in other situations, might have become brilliant and
admired, was exhibited in the usual simple and earnest manner.

"You forget, Judith, what has brought us here," she said reproachfully.
"This is mother's grave, and we have just laid the body of father by her
side. We have done wrong to talk so much of ourselves at such a spot,
and ought now to pray God to forgive us, and ask him to teach us where
we are to go, and what we are to do."

Judith involuntarily laid aside her paddle, while Hetty dropped on her
knees, and was soon lost in her devout but simple petitions. Her sister
did not pray. This she had long ceased to do directly, though anguish of
spirit frequently w