id
seriously and in sincerity of heart. Forgetting the shame that ought to
keep girls silent until spoken to, in most cases, I will deal with you
as frankly as I know one of your generous nature will most like to be
dealt by. Can you--do you think, Deerslayer, that you could be happy
with such a wife as a woman like myself would make?"

"A woman like you, Judith! But where's the sense in trifling about such
a thing? A woman like you, that is handsome enough to be a captain's
lady, and fine enough, and so far as I know edicated enough, would be
little apt to think of becoming my wife. I suppose young gals that
feel themselves to be smart, and know themselves to be handsome, find a
sartain satisfaction in passing their jokes ag'in them that's neither,
like a poor Delaware hunter."

This was said good naturedly, but not without a betrayal of feeling
which showed that something like mortified sensibility was blended
with the reply. Nothing could have occurred more likely to awaken all
Judith's generous regrets, or to aid her in her purpose, by adding the
stimulant of a disinterested desire to atone to her other impulses, and
cloaking all under a guise so winning and natural, as greatly to lessen
the unpleasant feature of a forwardness unbecoming the sex.

"You do me injustice if you suppose I have any such thought, or wish,"
she answered, earnestly. "Never was I more serious in my life, or more
willing to abide by any agreement that we may make to-night. I have had
many suitors, Deerslayer--nay, scarce an unmarried trapper or hunter
has been in at the Lake these four years, who has not offered to take me
away with him, and I fear some that were married, too--"

"Ay, I'll warrant that!" interrupted the other--"I'll warrant all that!
Take 'em as a body, Judith, 'arth don't hold a set of men more given to
theirselves, and less given to God and the law."

"Not one of them would I--could I listen to; happily for myself perhaps,
has it been that such was the case. There have been well looking youths
among them too, as you may have seen in your acquaintance, Henry March."

"Yes, Harry is sightly to the eye, though, to my idees, less so to the
judgment. I thought, at first, you meant to have him, Judith, I did; but
afore he went, it was easy enough to verify that the same lodge wouldn't
be big enough for you both."

"You have done me justice in that at least, Deerslayer. Hurry is a man I
could never marry, though he were ten