I have had many suitors, Deerslayer - nay, scarce
an unmarried trapper or hunter has been in at the Lake these four
years, who has not offered to take me away with him, and
I fear some that were married, too -"
"Ay, I'll warrant that!" interrupted the other - "I'll warrant all
that! Take 'em as a body, Judith, 'arth don't hold a set of men
more given to theirselves, and less given to God and the law."
"Not one of them would I - could I listen to; happily for myself
perhaps, has it been that such was the case. There have been
well looking youths among them too, as you may have seen in your
acquaintance, Henry March."
"Yes, Harry is sightly to the eye, though, to my idees, less so to
the judgment. I thought, at first, you meant to have him, Judith,
I did; but afore he went, it was easy enough to verify that the
same lodge wouldn't be big enough for you both."
"You have done me justice in that at least, Deerslayer. Hurry is
a man I could never marry, though he were ten times more comely
to the eye, and a hundred times more stout of heart than he really
is."
"Why not, Judith, why not? I own I'm cur'ous to know why a youth
like Hurry shouldn't find favor with a maiden like you?"
"Then you shall know, Deerslayer," returned the girl, gladly availing
herself of the opportunity of indirectly extolling the qualities
which had so strongly interested her in her listener; hoping by
these means covertly to approach the subject nearest her heart.
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