ct. Still, I will own all my
foolishness, Pathfinder; for I ought to own it to a generous friend
like you, and there will be an end of it. You know how young people
understand each other, or think they understand each other, without
always speaking out in plain speech, and get to know each other's
thoughts, or to think they know them, by means of a hundred little
ways."

"Not I, Jasper, not I," truly answered the guide; for, sooth to say,
his advances had never been met with any of that sweet and precious
encouragement which silently marks the course of sympathy united to
passion. "Not I, Jasper; I know nothing of all this. Mabel has always
treated me fairly, and said what she has had to say in speech as plain
as tongue could tell it."

"You have had the pleasure of hearing her say that she loved you,
Pathfinder?"

"Why, no, Jasper, not just that in words. She has told me that we never
could, never ought to be married; that _she_ was not good enough for
_me_, though she _did_ say that she honored me and respected me. But
then the Sergeant said it was always so with the youthful and timid;
that her mother did so and said so afore her; and that I ought to be
satisfied if she would consent on any terms to marry me, and therefore I
have concluded that all was right, I have."

In spite of all his friendship for the successful wooer, in spite of all
his honest, sincere wished for his happiness, we should be unfaithful
chroniclers did we not own that Jasper felt his heart bound with an
uncontrollable feeling of delight at this admission. It was not that
he saw or felt any hope connected with the circumstance; but it was
grateful to the jealous covetousness of unlimited love thus to learn
that no other ears had heard the sweet confessions that were denied its
own.

"Tell me more of this manner of talking without the use of the tongue,"
continued Pathfinder, whose countenance was becoming grave, and who now
questioned his companion like one who seemed to anticipate evil in the
reply. "I can and have conversed with Chingachgook, and with his son
Uncas too, in that mode, afore the latter fell; but I didn't know that
young girls practysed this art, and, least of all, Mabel Dunham."

"'Tis nothing, Pathfinder. I mean only a look, or a smile, or a glance
of the eye, or the trembling of an arm or a hand when the young woman
has had occasion to touch me; and because I have been weak enough to
tremble even at Mabel's breath, or