lldeer, in order to take a little venison,
the animals look back, and it seems as if they all had Mabel's sweet
countenance, laughing in my face, and looking as if they said, 'Shoot me
if you dare!' Then I hear her soft voice calling out among the birds
as they sing; and no later than the last nap I took, I bethought me, in
fancy, of going over the Niagara, holding Mabel in my arms, rather than
part from her. The bitterest moments I've ever known were them in which
the devil, or some Mingo conjuror, perhaps, has just put into my head
to fancy in dreams that Mabel is lost to me by some unaccountable
calamity--either by changefulness or by violence."

"Oh, Pathfinder! If you think this so bitter in a dream, what must it be
to one who feels its reality, and knows it all to be true, true, true?
So true as to leave no hope; to leave nothing but despair!"

These words burst from Jasper as a fluid pours from the vessel that
has been suddenly broken. They were uttered involuntarily, almost
unconsciously, but with a truth and feeling that carried with them the
instant conviction of their deep sincerity. Pathfinder started, gazed at
his friend for full a minute like one bewildered, and then it was that,
in despite of all his simplicity, the truth gleamed upon him. All know
how corroborating proofs crowd upon the mind as soon as it catches a
direct clue to any hitherto unsuspected fact; how rapidly the
thoughts flow and premises tend to their just conclusions under such
circumstances. Our hero was so confiding by nature, so just, and so much
disposed to imagine that all his friends wished him the same happiness
as he wished them, that, until this unfortunate moment, a suspicion of
Jasper's attachment for Mabel had never been awakened in his bosom. He
was, however, now too experienced in the emotions which characterize the
passion; and the burst of feeling in his companion was too violent and
too natural to leave any further doubt on the subject. The feeling
that first followed this change of opinion was one of deep humility and
exquisite pain. He bethought him of Jasper's youth, his higher claims
to personal appearance, and all the general probabilities that such
a suitor would be more agreeable to Mabel than he could possibly be
himself. Then the noble rectitude of mind, for which the man was so
distinguished, asserted its power; it was sustained by his rebuked
manner of thinking of himself, and all that habitual deference for th