“If you pass for your value, Pathfinder, the greatest lady in the land would be happy with you.  On that head you have no reason to feel afraid.”

“Now, Jasper, I dare to say you think so, nay, I know you do; for it is nat’ral, and according to friendship, for people to look over-favorably at them they love.  Yes, yes; if I had to marry you, boy, I should give myself no consarn about my being well looked upon, for you have always shown a disposition to see me and all I do with friendly eyes.  But a young gal, after all, must wish to marry a man that is nearer to her own age and fancies, than to have one old enough to be her father, and rude enough to frighten her.  I wonder, Jasper, that Mabel never took a fancy to you, now, rather than setting her mind on me.”

“Take, a fancy to me, Pathfinder!” returned the young man, endeavoring to clear his voice without betraying himself; “what is there about me to please such a girl as Mabel Dunham?  I have all that you find fault with in yourself, with none of that excellence that makes even the generals respect you.”

“Well, well, it’s all chance, say what we will about it.  Here have I journeyed and guided through the woods female after female, and consorted with them in the garrisons, and never have I even felt an inclination for any, until I saw Mabel Dunham.  It’s true the poor Sergeant first set me to thinking about his daughter; but after we got a little acquainted like, I’d no need of being spoken to, to think of her night and day.  I’m tough, Jasper; yes, I’m very tough; and I’m risolute enough, as you all know; and yet I do think it would quite break me down, now, to lose Mabel Dunham!”

“We will talk no more of it, Pathfinder,” said Jasper, returning his friend’s squeeze of the hand, and moving back towards the fire, though slowly, and in the manner of one who cared little where he went; “we will talk no more of it.  You are worthy of Mabel, and Mabel is worthy of you —­ you like Mabel, and Mabel likes you —­ her father has chosen you for her husband, and no one has a right to interfere.  As for the Quartermaster, his feigning love for Mabel is worse even than his treason to the king.”

By this time they were so near the fire that it was necessary to change the conversation.  Luckily, at that instant, Cap, who had been in the block in company with his dying brother-in-law, and who knew nothing of what had passed since the capitulation, now appeared, walking with a meditative and melancholy air towards the group.  Much of that hearty dogmatism, that imparted even to his ordinary air and demeanor an appearance of something like contempt for all around him, had disappeared, and he seemed thoughtful, if not meek.

“This death, gentlemen,” said he, when he had got sufficiently near, “is a melancholy business, make the best of it.  Now, here is Sergeant Dunham, a very good soldier, I make no question, about to slip his cable; and yet he holds on to the better end of it, as if he was determined it should never run out of the hawse-hole; and all because he loves his daughter, it seems to me.  For my part, when a friend is really under the necessity of making a long journey, I always wish him well and happily off.”