.
    While this matter was thus discussed near the taffrail, Mabel sat silent by
the companion-way; Mr. Muir having gone below, to look after his personal
comforts, and Jasper standing a little aloof, with his arms crossed and his eyes
wandering from the sails to the clouds, from the clouds to the dusky outline of
the shore, from the shore to the lake, and from the lake back again to the
sails. Our heroine, too, began to commune with her own thoughts. The excitement
of the late journey, the incidents which marked the day of her arrival at the
fort, the meeting with a father who was virtually a stranger to her, the novelty
of her late situation in the garrison, and her present voyage, formed a vista
for the mind's eye to look back through, that seemed lengthened into months. She
could with difficulty believe that she had so recently left the town, with all
its usages of civilized life, and she wondered, in particular, that the
incidents which had occurred during the descent of the Oswego, had made so
little impression on her mind. Too inexperienced to know that events, when
crowded, have the effect of time, or that the quick succession of novelties that
pass before us in travelling, elevate objects, in a measure, to the dignity of
events, she drew upon her memory for days and dates, in order to make certain
that she had known Jasper, and the Pathfinder, and her own father but little
more than a fortnight. Mabel was a girl of heart, rather than of imagination,
though by no means deficient in the last, and she could not easily account for
the strength of her feelings in connection with those who were so lately
strangers to her, for she was not sufficiently accustomed to analyze her
sensations to understand the nature of the influences that have just been
mentioned. As yet, however, her pure mind was free from the blight of distrust,
and she had no suspicion of the views of either of her suitors, and one of the
last thoughts that could have voluntarily disturbed her confidence, would have
been to suppose it possible either of her companions was a traitor to his King
and Country.
    America, at the time of which we are writing, was remarkable for its
attachment to the German family that then sat on the British throne, for, as is
the fact with all provinces, the virtues and qualities that are proclaimed near
the centre of power, as incense and policy, get to be a part of political faith,
with the credulous and ignorant at a distance
