it was uttered, told me that I was talking to a man who
had truly loved.

"No doubt," thought I, "some strapping backwoods wench has been the
object of his passion,"--for what other idea could I have about the
child of a coarse and illiterate squatter? "Love is as blind as a bat;
and this red-haired hoyden has appeared a perfect Venus in the eyes of
the handsome fellow--as not unfrequently happens. A Venus with
evidently a slight admixture of the prudential Juno in her composition.
The young backwoodsman is poor; the schoolmaster perhaps a little better
off; in all probability not much, but enough to decide the preference of
the shrewd Marian."

Such were my reflections at the moment, partly suggested by my own
experience.

"But you have not yet told me who this sweetheart was? You say it is
not the Indian damsel you've just parted with?"

"No, stranger, nothin' o' the kind: though there are some Injun in _her_
too. 'Twar o' her the girl spoke when ye heerd her talk o' a
half-blood. She aint just that--she's more white than Injun; her mother
only war a half-blood--o' the Chicasaw nation, that used to belong in
these parts."

"Her name?"

"It _war_ Marian Holt. It are now Stebbins, I s'pose! since I've jest
heerd she's married to a fellow o' that name."

"She has certainly not improved her name."

"She are the daughter o' Holt the squatter--the same whar you say you're
a-goin'. Thar's another, as I told ye; but she's a younger un. Her
name's Lilian."

"A pretty name. The older sister was very beautiful you say?"

"I niver set eyes on the like o' her."

"Does the younger one resemble her?"

"Ain't a bit like her--different as a squ'll from a coon."

"She's more beautiful, then?"

"Well, that depends upon people's ways o' thinkin'. Most people as know
'em liked Lilian the best, an' thort her the handsumest o' the two.
That wan't my notion. Besides, Lilly's only a young crittur--not out o'
her teens yit."

"But if she be also pretty, why not try to fall in love with her? Down
in Mexico, where I've been lately, they have a shrewd saying: _Un clavo
saca otro clavo_, meaning that `one nail drives out another'--as much as
to say, that one love cures another."

"Ah, stranger! that may be all be very well in Mexico, whar I've heerd
they ain't partickler about thar way o' lovin': but we've a sayin' here
jest the contrairy o' that: `two bars can't get into the same trap.'"

"Ha, ha, ha! Well you