“Anan?”

“You forget that we are to be married; and such allusions are improper as well as painful.”

“Everything is proper that is right, Mabel; and everything is right that leads to justice and fair dealing; though it is painful enough, as you say, as I find on trial, I do.  Now, Mabel, had you known that Eau-douce thinks of you in this way, maybe you never would have consented to be married to one as old and as uncomely as I am.”

“Why this cruel trial, Pathfinder?  To what can all this lead?  Jasper Western thinks no such thing:  he says nothing, he feels nothing.”

“Mabel!” burst from out of the young man’s lips, in a way to betray the uncontrollable nature of his emotions, though he uttered not another syllable.

Mabel buried her face in both her hands; and the two sat like a pair of guilty beings, suddenly detected in the commission of some crime which involved the happiness of a common patron.  At that instant, perhaps, Jasper himself was inclined to deny his passion, through an extreme unwillingness to grieve his friend; while Mabel, on whom this positive announcement of a fact that she had rather unconsciously hoped than believed, came so unexpectedly, felt her mind momentarily bewildered; and she scarcely knew whether to weep or to rejoice.  Still she was the first to speak; since Eau-douce could utter naught that would be disingenuous, or that would pain his friend.

“Pathfinder,” said she, “you talk wildly.  Why mention this at all?”

“Well, Mabel, if I talk wildly, I am half wild, you know, by natur’, I fear, as well as by habit.”  As he said this, he endeavored to laugh in his usual noiseless way, but the effect produced a strange and discordant sound; and it appeared nearly to choke him.  “Yes, I must be wild; I’ll not attempt to deny it.”

“Dearest Pathfinder! my best, almost my only friend!  You cannot, do not think I intended to say that!” interrupted Mabel, almost breathless in her haste to relieve his mortification.  “If courage, truth, nobleness of 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?”