times more comely to the eye, and
a hundred times more stout of heart than he really is."

"Why not, Judith, why not? I own I'm cur'ous to know why a youth like
Hurry shouldn't find favor with a maiden like you?"

"Then you shall know, Deerslayer," returned the girl, gladly availing
herself of the opportunity of indirectly extolling the qualities which
had so strongly interested her in her listener; hoping by these means
covertly to approach the subject nearest her heart. "In the first place,
looks in a man are of no importance with a woman, provided he is manly,
and not disfigured, or deformed."

"There I can't altogether agree with you," returned the other
thoughtfully, for he had a very humble opinion of his own personal
appearance; "I have noticed that the comeliest warriors commonly get the
best-looking maidens of the tribe for wives, and the Sarpent, yonder,
who is sometimes wonderful in his paint, is a gineral favorite with all
the Delaware young women, though he takes to Hist, himself, as if she
was the only beauty on 'arth!"

"It may be so with Indians; but it is different with white girls. So
long as a young man has a straight and manly frame, that promises to
make him able to protect a woman, and to keep want from the door, it is
all they ask of the figure. Giants like Hurry may do for grenadiers, but
are of little account as lovers. Then as to the face, an honest look,
one that answers for the heart within, is of more value than any shape
or colour, or eyes, or teeth, or trifles like them. The last may do for
girls, but who thinks of them at all, in a hunter, or a warrior, or a
husband? If there are women so silly, Judith is not among them."

"Well, this is wonderful! I always thought that handsome liked handsome,
as riches love riches!"

"It may be so with you men, Deerslayer, but it is not always so with us
women. We like stout-hearted men, but we wish to see them modest; sure
on a hunt, or the war-path, ready to die for the right, and unwilling to
yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty--tongues that are not
used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little
for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for
such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to
be as hateful to the sight, as he is to the mind."

Judith spoke bitterly, and with her usual force, but her listener was
too much struck with the novelty of the sensati