rsecution in the arrangement.

"Why, he can make love to you, if you like it, girl; for he is an
amorous youth, and, having already disposed of four wives, is impatient
to show how much he honors their memories by taking a fifth."

"The Quartermaster tells me," said Pathfinder innocently, "that when a
man's feelings have been harassed by so many losses, there is no wiser
way to soothe them than by ploughing up the soil anew, in such a manner
as to leave no traces of what have gone over it before."

"Ay, that is just the difference between ploughing and harrowing,"
returned the Sergeant, with a grim smile. "But let him tell Mabel his
mind, and there will be an end of his suit. I very well know that _my_
daughter will never be the wife of Lieutenant Muir."

This was said in a way that was tantamount to declaring that no daughter
of his ever _should_ become the wife of the person in question. Mabel
had colored, trembled, half laughed, and looked uneasy; but, rallying
her spirit, she said, in a voice so cheerful as completely to conceal
her agitation, "But, father, we might better wait until Mr. Muir
manifests a wish that your daughter would have him, or rather a wish to
have your daughter, lest we get the fable of sour grapes thrown into our
faces."

"And what is that fable, Mabel?" eagerly demanded Pathfinder, who was
anything but learned in the ordinary lore of white men. "Tell it to us,
in your own pretty way; I daresay the Sergeant never heard it."

Mabel repeated the well-known fable, and, as her suitor had desired,
in her own pretty way, which was a way to keep his eyes riveted on her
face, and the whole of his honest countenance covered with a smile.

"That was like a fox!" cried Pathfinder, when she had ceased; "ay, and
like a Mingo, too, cunning and cruel; that is the way with both the
riptyles. As to grapes, they are sour enough in this part of the
country, even to them that can get at them, though I daresay there are
seasons and times and places where they are sourer to them that can't. I
should judge, now, my scalp is very sour in Mingo eyes."

"The sour grapes will be the other way, child, and it is Mr. Muir who
will make the complaint. You would never marry that man, Mabel?"

"Not she," put in Cap; "a fellow who is only half a soldier after all.
The story of them there grapes is quite a circumstance."

"I think little of marrying any one, dear father and dear uncle, and
would rather talk about it le