ttle bark was turning from it, with a movement
so light and steady as to be almost imperceptible. An impulse of feeling
now overcame her timidity, and Hetty spoke.

"Goodbye Hurry--" she called out, in her sweet voice--"goodbye, dear
Hurry. Take care of yourself in the woods, and don't stop once, 'til you
reach the garrison. The leaves on the trees are scarcely plentier than
the Hurons round the lake, and they'll not treat a strong man like you
as kindly as they treat me."

The ascendency which March had obtained over this feebleminded, but
right-thinking, and right-feeling girl, arose from a law of nature. Her
senses had been captivated by his personal advantages, and her moral
communications with him had never been sufficiently intimate to
counteract an effect that must have been otherwise lessened, even with
one whose mind was as obtuse as her own. Hetty's instinct of right, if
such a term can be applied to one who seemed taught by some kind spirit
how to steer her course with unerring accuracy, between good and evil,
would have revolted at Hurry's character on a thousand points, had there
been opportunities to enlighten her, but while he conversed and trifled
with her sister, at a distance from herself, his perfection of form
and feature had been left to produce their influence on her simple
imagination and naturally tender feelings, without suffering by the
alloy of his opinions and coarseness. It is true she found him rough and
rude; but her father was that, and most of the other men she had seen,
and that which she believed to belong to all of the sex struck her less
unfavorably in Hurry's character than it might otherwise have done.
Still, it was not absolutely love that Hetty felt for Hurry, nor do
we wish so to portray it, but merely that awakening sensibility and
admiration, which, under more propitious circumstances, and always
supposing no untoward revelations of character on the part of the young
man had supervened to prevent it, might soon have ripened into that
engrossing feeling. She felt for him an incipient tenderness, but
scarcely any passion. Perhaps the nearest approach to the latter that
Hetty had manifested was to be seen in the sensitiveness which had
caused her to detect March's predilection for her sister, for, among
Judith's many admirers, this was the only instance in which the
dull mind of the girl had been quickened into an observation of the
circumstances.

Hurry received so little sym