The season and the night, to represent them truly, were of a nature to stimulate the sensations which youth, health, and happiness are wont to associate with novelty.
The weather was warm, as is not always the case in that region even in summer, while the air that came off the land, in breathing currents, brought with it the coolness and fragrance of the forest.
The wind was far from being fresh, though there was enough of it to drive the Scud merrily ahead, and, perhaps, to keep attention alive, in the uncertainty that more or less accompanies darkness.
Jasper, however, appeared to regard it with complacency, as was apparent by what he said in a short dialogue that now occurred between him and Mabel.
"At this rate, Eau-douce," -- for so Mabel had already learned to style the young sailor, -- said our heroine, "we cannot be long in reaching our place of destination."
"Has your father then told you what that is, Mabel?"
"He has told me nothing; my father is too much of a soldier, and too little used to have a family around him, to talk of such matters.
Is it forbidden to say whither we are bound?"
"It cannot be far, while we steer in this direction, for sixty or seventy miles will take us into the St. Lawrence, which the French might make too hot for us; and no voyage on this lake can be very long."
"So says my uncle Cap; but to me, Jasper, Ontario and the ocean appear very much the same."
"You have then been on the ocean; while I, who pretend to be a sailor, have never yet seen salt water.
You must have a great contempt for such a mariner as myself, in your heart, Mabel Dunham?"
"Then I have no such thing in my heart, Jasper Eau-douce.
What right have I, a girl without experience or knowledge, to despise any, much less one like you, who are trusted by the Major, and who command a vessel like this?
I have never been on the ocean, though I have seen it; and, I repeat, I see no difference between this lake and the Atlantic."
"Nor in them that sail on both?
I was afraid, Mabel, your uncle had said so much against us fresh-water sailors, that you had begun to look upon us as little better than pretenders?"
"Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, Jasper; for I know my uncle, and he says as many things against those who live ashore, when at York, as he now says against those who sail on fresh water.
No, no, neither my father nor myself think anything of such opinions.
My uncle Cap, if he spoke openly, would be found to have even a worse notion of a soldier than of a sailor who never saw the sea."
"But your father, Mabel, has a better opinion of soldiers than of any one else? he wishes you to be the wife of a soldier?"
"Jasper Eau-douce! -- I the wife of a soldier!
My father wishes it!
Why should he wish any such thing?
What soldier is there in the garrison that I could marry -- that he could wish me to marry?"
"One may love a calling so well as to fancy it will cover a thousand imperfections."
"But one is not likely to love his own calling so well as to cause him to overlook everything else.
You say my father wishes me to marry a soldier; and yet there is no soldier at Oswego that he would be likely to give me to.
I am in an awkward position; for while I am not good enough to be the wife of one of the gentlemen of the garrison, I think even you will admit, Jasper, I am too good to be the wife of one of the common soldiers."
As Mabel spoke thus frankly she blushed, she knew not why, though the obscurity concealed the fact from her companion; and she laughed faintly, like one who felt that the subject, however embarrassing it might be, deserved to be treated fairly.
Jasper, it would seem, viewed her position differently from herself.
"It is true Mabel," said he, "you are not what is called a lady, in the common meaning of the word."
"Not in any meaning, Jasper," the generous girl eagerly interrupted: "on that head, I have no vanities, I hope.
Providence has made me the daughter of a sergeant, and I am content to remain in the station in which I was born."
"But all do not remain in the stations in which they were born, Mabel; for some rise above them, and some fall below them.
Many sergeants have become officers -- even generals; and why may not sergeants' daughters become officers' ladies?"
"In the case of Sergeant Dunham's daughter, I know no better reason than the fact that no officer is likely to wish to make her his wife," returned Mabel, laughing.
"You may think so; but there are some in the 55th that know better. There is certainly one officer in that regiment, Mabel, who does wish to make you his wife."
Quick as the flashing lightning, the rapid thoughts of Mabel Dunham glanced over the five or six subalterns of the corps, who, by age and inclinations, would be the most likely to form such a wish; and we should do injustice to her habits, perhaps, were we not to say that a lively sensation of pleasure rose momentarily in her bosom, at the thought of being raised above a station which, whatever might be her professions of contentment, she felt that she had been too well educated to fill with perfect satisfaction.
But this emotion was as transient as it was sudden; for Mabel Dunham was a girl of too much pure and womanly feeling to view the marriage tie through anything so worldly as the mere advantages of station.
The passing emotion was a thrill produced by factitious habits, while the more settled opinion which remained was the offspring of nature and principles.
"I know no officer in the 55th, or any other regiment, who would be likely to do so foolish a thing; nor do I think I myself would do so foolish a thing as to marry an officer."
"Foolish, Mabel!"
"Yes, foolish, Jasper.
You know, as well as I can know, what the world would think of such matters; and I should be sorry, very sorry, to find that my husband ever regretted that he had so far yielded to a fancy for a face or a figure as to have married the daughter of one so much his inferior as a sergeant."
"Your husband, Mabel, will not be so likely to think of the father as to think of the daughter."
The girl was talking with spirit, though feeling evidently entered into her part of the discourse; but she paused for nearly a minute after Jasper had made the last observation before she uttered another word.
Then she continued, in a manner less playful, and one critically attentive might have fancied in a manner slightly melancholy, --
"Parent and child ought so to live as not to have two hearts, or two modes of feeling and thinking.
A common interest in all things I should think as necessary to happiness in man and wife, as between the other members of the same family.