, he did, when he spoke of your having beauty without seeming
ever to have looked upon it, and the manner in which you moved about like a
young fa'an, so nat'ral and graceful like, without knowing it; and the truth and
justice of your idees, and the warmth and generosity of your heart -«
    »Jasper!« interrupted Mabel, giving way to feelings that had gathered an
ungovernable force by being so long pent, and falling into the young man's
willing arms, weeping like a child, and almost as helpless. »Jasper! - Jasper! -
Why have you kept this from me!«
    The answer of Eau douce was not very intelligible, nor was the murmured
dialogue that followed remarkable for coherency. But the language of affection
is easily understood. The hour that succeeded passed like a very few minutes of
ordinary life, so far as a computation of time was concerned, and when Mabel
recollected herself, and bethought her of the existence of others, her uncle was
pacing the cutter's deck, in great impatience, and wondering why Jasper should
be losing so much of a favorable wind. Her first thought was of him, who was so
likely to feel the recent betrayal of her real emotions.
    »Oh! Jasper!« she exclaimed like one suddenly self convicted - »the
Pathfinder!«
    Eau douce fairly trembled, not with unmanly apprehension, but with the
painful consciousness of the pang he had given his friend, and he looked in all
directions, in the expectation of seeing his person. But Pathfinder had
withdrawn, with a tact and a delicacy, that might have done credit to the
sensibility and breeding of a courtier. For several minutes the two lovers sate,
silently waiting his return, uncertain what propriety required, under
circumstances so marked, and so peculiar. At length they beheld their friend
advancing slowly towards them, with a thoughtful and even pensive air.
    »I now understand what you meant, Jasper, by speaking without a tongue, and
hearing without an ear,« he said, when close enough to the tree to be heard, -
»Yes, I understand it, now, I do, and a very pleasant sort of discourse it is,
when one can hold it with Mabel Dunham. Ah's me! - I told the sarjeant I was'n't
fit for her; that I was too old, too ignorant, and too wild like, but he would
have it, otherwise.«
    Jasper and Mabel sate, resembling Milton's picture of our first parents,