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 has fancied some one wanted to force you out of the Scud, where he imagined you had taken up your abode.  Nay, the lad has even acknowledged that he often weeps at the thought that you are likely to spend your days with another, and not with him.”

“Jasper!”

“It’s solemn truth, Mabel, and it’s right you should know it.  Now stand up, and choose ’atween us.  I do believe Eau-douce loves you as well as I do myself; he has tried to persuade me that he loves you better, but that I will not allow, for I do not think it possible; but I will own the boy loves you, heart and soul, and he has a good right to be heard.  The Sergeant left me your protector, and not your tyrant.  I told him that I would be a father to you as well as a husband, and it seems to me no feeling father would deny his child this small privilege.  Stand up, Mabel, therefore, and speak your thoughts as freely as if I were the Sergeant himself, seeking your good, and nothing else.”

Mabel dropped her hands, arose, and stood face to face with her two suitors, though the flush that was on her cheeks was feverish, the evidence of excitement rather than of shame.

“What would you have, Pathfinder?” she asked; “Have I not already promised my poor father to do all you desire?”