"
"This is so true, Deerslayer, that I am surprised you should think
it remarkable a girl, who may have some comeliness herself, should
not think it necessary that her husband should have the same
advantage, or what you fancy an advantage. To me, looks in a man
is nothing provided his countenance be as honest as his heart."
"Yes, honesty is a great advantage, in the long run; and they that
are the most apt to forget it in the beginning, are the most apt
to l'arn it in the ind. Nevertheless, there's more, Judith, that
look to present profit than to the benefit that is to come after
a time. One they think a sartainty, and the other an onsartainty.
I'm glad, howsever, that you look at the thing in its true light,
and not in the way in which so many is apt to deceive themselves."
"I do thus look at it, Deerslayer," returned the girl with emphasis,
still shrinking with a woman's sensitiveness from a direct offer of
her hand, "and can say, from the bottom of my heart, that I would
rather trust my happiness to a man whose truth and feelings may be
depended on, than to a false-tongued and false-hearted wretch that
had chests of gold, and houses and lands - yes, though he were
even seated on a throne!"
"These are brave words, Judith; they're downright brave words;
but do you think that the feelin's would keep 'em company, did the
ch'ice actually lie afore you? If a gay gallant in a scarlet coat
stood on one side, with his head smelling like a deer's foot, his
face smooth and blooming as your own, his hands as white and soft
as if God hadn't bestowed 'em that man might live by the sweat of
his brow, and his step as lofty as dancing-teachers and a light
heart could make it; and the other side stood one that has passed
his days in the open air till his forehead is as red as his cheek;
had cut his way through swamps and bushes till his hand was as rugged
as the oaks he slept under; had trodden on the scent of game till
his step was as stealthy as the catamount's, and had no other
pleasant odor about him than such as natur' gives in the free air
and the forest - now, if both these men stood here, as suitors for
your feelin's, which do you think would win your favor?"
Judith's fine face flushed, for the picture that her companion had
so simply drawn of a gay officer of the garrisons had once been
particularly grateful to her imagination, though experience and
disappointment had not only chilled all her affections, but given
them a backward current, and the passing image had a momentary
influence on her feelings; but the mounting colour was succeeded
by a paleness so deadly, as to make her appear ghastly.
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