soul and conduct, unyielding principles, and a hundred other
excellent qualities can render any man respectable, esteemed, or
beloved, your claims are inferior to those of no other human being."

"What tender and bewitching voices they have, Jasper!" resumed the
guide, now laughing freely and naturally. "Yes, natur' seems to have
made them on purpose to sing in our ears, when the music of the woods
is silent. But we must come to a right understanding, we must. I ask you
again, Mabel, if you had known that Jasper Western loves you as well as
I do, or better perhaps, though that is scarcely possible; that in his
dreams he sees your face in the water of the lake; that he talks to
you, and of you, in his sleep; fancies all that is beautiful like Mabel
Dunham, and all that is good and virtuous; believes he never knowed
happiness until he knowed you; could kiss the ground on which you have
trod, and forgets all the joys of his calling to think of you and the
delight of gazing at your beauty and in listening to your voice, would
you then have consented to marry me?"

Mabel could not have answered this question if she would; but, though
her face was buried in her hands, the tint of the rushing blood was
visible between the openings, and the suffusion seemed to impart itself
to her very fingers. Still nature asserted her power, for there was a
single instant when the astonished, almost terrified girl stole a glance
at Jasper, as if distrusting Pathfinder's history of his feelings, read
the truth of all he said in that furtive look, and instantly concealed
her face again, as if she would hide it from observation for ever.

"Take time to think, Mabel," the guide continued, "for it is a solemn
thing to accept one man for a husband while the thoughts and wishes lead
to another. Jasper and I have talked this matter over, freely and like
old friends, and, though I always knowed that we viewed most things
pretty much alike, I couldn't have thought that we regarded any
particular object with the very same eyes, as it might be, until we
opened our minds to each other about you. Now Jasper owns that the very
first time he beheld you, he thought you the sweetest and winningestest
creatur' he had ever met; that your voice sounded like murmuring water
in his ears; that he fancied his sails were your garments fluttering in
the wind; that your laugh haunted him in his sleep; and that ag'in and
ag'in has he started up affrighted, because he h