e individual, perhaps, as
by his own likings; still no one knew the Pathfinder so intimately as
himself without always conceding to the honest guide a high place in his
esteem on account of these very virtues. That his daughter could find
any serious objections to the match the old soldier did not apprehend;
while, on the other hand, he saw many advantages to himself in dim
perspective, connected with the decline of his days, and an evening of
life passed among descendants who were equally dear to him through
both parents. He had first made the proposition to his friend, who had
listened to it kindly, but who, the Sergeant was now pleased to find,
already betrayed a willingness to come into his own views that was
proportioned to the doubts and misgivings proceeding from his humble
distrust of himself.

CHAPTER X.

Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
'Tis but a peevish boy:--yet he talks well--
But what care I for words?

A week passed in the usual routine of a garrison. Mabel was becoming
used to a situation that, at first she had found not only novel, but
a little irksome; and the officers and men in their turn, gradually
familiarized to the presence of a young and blooming girl, whose attire
and carriage had that air of modest gentility about them which she
had obtained in the family of her patroness, annoyed her less by their
ill-concealed admiration, while they gratified her by the respect which,
she was fain to think, they paid her on account of her father; but
which, in truth, was more to be attributed to her own modest but
spirited deportment, than to any deference for the worthy Sergeant.

Acquaintances made in a forest, or in any circumstances of unusual
excitement, soon attain their limits. Mabel found one week's residence
at Oswego sufficient to determine her as to those with whom she might be
intimate and those whom she ought to avoid. The sort of neutral position
occupied by her father, who was not an officer, while he was so much
more than a common soldier, by keeping her aloof from the two great
classes of military life, lessened the number of those whom she was
compelled to know, and made the duty of decision comparatively easy.
Still she soon discovered that there were a few, even among those that
could aspire to a seat at the Commandant's table, who were disposed to
overlook the halbert for the novelty of a well-turned figure and of a
pretty, winning face; and by the e