is whole
history. No one is better known on this frontier than my honest, brave,
true-hearted friend."

"All that is true enough; but is he, after all, the sort of person to
make a girl of twenty happy?"

"Why not, your honor? The man is at the head of his calling. There is no
other guide or scout connected with the army who has half the reputation
of Pathfinder, or who deserves to have it half as well."

"Very true, Sergeant; but is the reputation of a scout exactly the sort
of renown to captivate a girl's fancy?"

"Talking of girls' fancies, sir, is in my humble opinion much like
talking of a recruit's judgment. If we were to take the movements of the
awkward squad, sir, as a guide, we should never form a decent line in
battalion, Major Duncan."

"But your daughter has nothing awkward about her: for a genteeler girl
of her class could not be found in old Albion itself. Is she of your way
of thinking in this matter?--though I suppose she must be, as you say
she is betrothed."

"We have not yet conversed on the subject, your honor; but I consider
her mind as good as made up, from several little circumstances which
might be named."

"And what are these circumstances, Sergeant?" asked the Major, who
began to take more interest than he had at first felt on the subject.
"I confess a little curiosity to know something about a woman's mind,
being, as you know, a bachelor myself."

"Why, your honor, when I speak of the Pathfinder to the girl, she always
looks me full in the face; chimes in with everything I say in his favor,
and has a frank open way with her, which says as much as if she half
considered him already as a husband."

"Hum! and these signs, you think, Dunham, are faithful tokens of your
daughter's feelings?"

"I do, your honor, for they strike me as natural. When I find a man,
sir, who looks me full in the face, while he praises an officer,--for,
begging your honor's pardon, the men will sometimes pass their
strictures on their betters,--and when I find a man looking me in the
eyes as he praises his captain, I always set it down that the fellow is
honest, and means what he says."

"Is there not some material difference in the age of the intended
bridegroom and that of his pretty bride, Sergeant?"

"You are quite right, sir; Pathfinder is well advanced towards forty,
and Mabel has every prospect of happiness that a young woman can derive
from the certainty of possessing an experienced husband. I was