fitter for the settlements than for the woods; while your reason is
fitter for the woods than for the settlements."

"Why has Judith more reason than I, father?"

"Heaven help thee, child: this is more than I can answer. God gives
sense, and appearance, and all these things; and he grants them as he
seeth fit. Dost thou wish for more sense?"

"Not I. The little I have troubles me; for when I think the hardest,
then I feel the unhappiest. I don't believe thinking is good for me,
though I do wish I was as handsome as Judith!"

"Why so, poor child? Thy sister's beauty may cause her trouble, as it
caused her mother before her. It's no advantage, Hetty, to be so marked
for anything as to become an object of envy, or to be sought after more
than others."

"Mother was good, if she was handsome," returned the girl, the tears
starting to her eyes, as usually happened when she adverted to her
deceased parent.

Old Hutter, if not equally affected, was moody and silent at this
allusion to his wife. He continued smoking, without appearing disposed
to make any answer, until his simple-minded daughter repeated her
remark, in a way to show that she felt uneasiness lest he might be
inclined to deny her assertion. Then he knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, and laying his hand in a sort of rough kindness on the girl's
head, he made a reply.

"Thy mother was too good for this world," he said; "though others might
not think so. Her good looks did not befriend her; and you have no
occasion to mourn that you are not as much like her as your sister.
Think less of beauty, child, and more of your duty, and you'll be as
happy on this lake as you could be in the king's palace."

"I know it, father; but Hurry says beauty is everything in a young
woman."

Hutter made an ejaculation expressive of dissatisfaction, and went
forward, passing through the house in order to do so. Hetty's simple
betrayal of her weakness in behalf of March gave him uneasiness on a
subject concerning which he had never felt before, and he determined
to come to an explanation at once with his visitor; for directness of
speech and decision in conduct were two of the best qualities of
this rude being, in whom the seeds of a better education seemed to be
constantly struggling upwards, to be choked by the fruits of a life in
which his hard struggles for subsistence and security had steeled his
feelings and indurated his nature. When he reached the forward end of
the