In order to do this
you've only to remember that they melt like the snows, and, when
once gone, they never come back ag'in. The seasons come and go,
Judith, and if we have winter, with storms and frosts, and spring
with chills and leafless trees, we have summer with its sun and
glorious skies, and fall with its fruits, and a garment thrown over
the forest, that no beauty of the town could rummage out of all
the shops in America. 'Arth is in an etarnal round, the goodness
of God bringing back the pleasant when we've had enough of the
onpleasant. But it's not so with good looks. They are lent for
a short time in youth, to be used and not abused, and, as I never
met with a young woman to whom providence has been as bountiful as
it has to you, Judith, in this partic'lar, I warn you, as it might
be with my dyin' breath, to beware of the inimy - fri'nd, or inimy,
as we deal with the gift."
It was so grateful to Judith to hear these unequivocal admissions
of her personal charms, that much would have been forgiven to the
man who made them, let him be who he might. But, at that moment,
and from a far better feeling, it would not have been easy for
Deerslayer seriously to offend her, and she listened with a patience,
which, had it been foretold only a week earlier, it would have
excited her indignation to hear.
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