“You have then been on the ocean; while I, who pretend to be a sailor, have never yet seen salt water.  You must have a great contempt for such a mariner as myself, in your heart, Mabel Dunham?”

“Then I have no such thing in my heart, Jasper Eau-douce.  What right have I, a girl without experience or knowledge, to despise any, much less one like you, who are trusted by the Major, and who command a vessel like this?  I have never been on the ocean, though I have seen it; and, I repeat, I see no difference between this lake and the Atlantic.”

“Nor in them that sail on both?  I was afraid, Mabel, your uncle had said so much against us fresh-water sailors, that you had begun to look upon us as little better than pretenders?”

“Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, Jasper; for I know my uncle, and he says as many things against those who live ashore, when at York, as he now says against those who sail on fresh water.  No, no, neither my father nor myself think anything of such opinions.  My uncle Cap, if he spoke openly, would be found to have even a worse notion of a soldier than of a sailor who never saw the sea.”

“But your father, Mabel, has a better opinion of soldiers than of any one else? he wishes you to be the wife of a soldier?”

“Jasper Eau-douce! —­ I the wife of a soldier!  My father wishes it!  Why should he wish any such thing?  What soldier is there in the garrison that I could marry —­ that he could wish me to marry?”

“One may love a calling so well as to fancy it will cover a thousand imperfections.”

“But one is not likely to love his own calling so well as to cause him to overlook everything else.  You say my father wishes me to marry a soldier; and yet there is no soldier at Oswego that he would be likely to give me to.  I am in an awkward position; for while I am not good enough to be the wife of one of the gentlemen of the garrison, I think even you will admit, Jasper, I am too good to be the wife of one of the common soldiers.”

As Mabel spoke thus frankly she blushed, she knew not why, though the obscurity concealed the fact from her companion; and she laughed faintly, like one who felt that the subject, however embarrassing it might be, deserved to be treated fairly.  Jasper, it would seem, viewed her position differently from herself.

“It is true Mabel,” said he, “you are not what is called a lady, in the common meaning of the word.”

“Not in any meaning, Jasper,” the generous girl eagerly interrupted:  “on that head, I have no vanities, I hope.  Providence has made me the daughter of a sergeant, and I am content to remain in the station in which I was born.”

“But all do not remain in the stations in which they were born, Mabel; for some rise above them, and some fall below them.  Many sergeants have become officers —­ even generals; and why may not sergeants’ daughters become officers’ ladies?”