The events that had occurred since
their meeting, as well as her isolated and dependant situation,
induced the girl to feel towards Deerslayer like the friend of
a year instead of an acquaintance of a day, and so completely had
she been won by his guileless truth of character and of feeling,
pure novelties in our sex, as respected her own experience, that
his peculiarities excited her curiosity, and created a confidence
that had never been awakened by any other man. Hitherto she had
been compelled to stand on the defensive in her intercourse with
men, with what success was best known to herself, but here had she
been suddenly thrown into the society and under the protection of
a youth, who evidently as little contemplated evil towards herself
as if he had been her brother. The freshness of his integrity,
the poetry and truth of his feelings, and even the quaintness of
his forms of speech, all had their influence, and aided in awakening
an interest that she found as pure as it was sudden and deep. Hurry's
fine face and manly form had never compensated for his boisterous
and vulgar tone, and her intercourse with the officers had prepared her
to make comparisons under which even his great natural advantages
suffered.
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