company, rebuked by his
sentiments, softened by his language and improved by his example. As might have
been expected with so elevated a quality, his fidelity was like the immoveable
rock. Treachery in him was classed among the things that are impossible, and as
he seldom retired before his enemies, so was he never known, under any
circumstances that admitted of an alternative, to abandon a friend. The
affinities of such a character were, as a matter of course, those of like for
like. His associates and intimates, though more or less determined by chance,
were generally of the higher order as to moral propensities, for he appeared to
possess a species of instinctive discrimination that led him, insensibly to
himself most probably, to cling closest to those, whose characters would best
reward his friendship. In short, it was said of the Pathfinder, by one
accustomed to study his fellows, that he was a fair example of what a
just-minded and pure man might be, while untempted by unruly or ambitious
desires, and left to follow the bias of his feelings, amid the solitary grandeur
and ennobling influences of a sublime nature; neither led aside by the
inducements which influence all to do evil amid the incentives of civilization,
nor forgetful of the Almighty Being whose spirit pervades the wilderness as well
as the town.
    Such was the man whom Serjeant Dunham had selected as the husband of Mabel.
In making this choice he had not been as much governed by a clear and judicious
view of the merits of the individual, perhaps, as by his own likings; still no
one knew the Pathfinder as intimately as himself, without always conceding to
the honest guide a high place in his esteem, on account of these very virtues.
That his daughter could find any serious objections to the match, the old
soldier did not apprehend, while, on the other hand, he saw many advantages to
himself, in dim perspective, that were connected with the decline of his days,
and an evening of life passed among descendants, who were equally dear to him
through both parents. He first made the proposition to his friend, who had
listened to it kindly, but who, the serjeant was now pleased to find, already
betrayed a willingness to come into his own views, that was proportioned to the
doubts and misgivings proceeding from his humble distrust of himself.
 

                                   Chapter X

 »Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
 'Tis but a peevish boy: - yet he talks well;-
 But what care I for words? -«
                                                   As You Like It, III.