"
Judith was a girl of quick sensibilities and of impetuous feelings;
and, being under few of the restraints that curtail the manifestations
of maiden emotions among those who are educated in the habits of
civilized life, she sometimes betrayed the latter with a feeling
that was so purely natural as to place it as far above the wiles of
coquetry as it was superior to its heartlessness. She had now even
taken one of the hard hands of the hunter and pressed it between
both her own, with a warmth and earnestness that proved how sincere
was her language. It was perhaps fortunate that she was checked by
the very excess of her feelings, since the same power might have
urged her on to avow all that her father had said - the old man
not having been satisfied with making a comparison favorable to
Deerslayer, as between the hunter and Hurry, but having actually,
in his blunt rough way, briefly advised his daughter to cast off the
latter entirely, and to think of the former as a husband. Judith
would not willingly have said this to any other man, but there
was so much confidence awakened by the guileless simplicity of
Deerslayer, that one of her nature found it a constant temptation
to overstep the bounds of habit.
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