"But Ellen is a good, and a kind, and a spirited girl, too.

A kind and a sweet girl I have ever found Nell Wade to be!" "The devil you have!" cried Paul, dropping the morsel he was sucking, from sheer reluctance to abandon the hump, and casting a fierce and direct look into the very teeth of the unconscious physician.

"I reckon, stranger, you have a mind to bag Ellen, too!" "The riches of the whole vegetable and animal world united, would not tempt me to harm a hair of her head! I love the child, with what may he called amor naturalis--or rather paternus--the affection of a father." "Ay--that, indeed, is more befitting the difference in your years," Paul coolly rejoined, stretching forth his hand to regain the rejected morsel.

"You would be no better than a drone at your time of day, with a young hive to feed and swarm." "Yes, there is reason, because there is natur', in what he says," observed the trapper: "but, friend, you have said you were a dweller in the camp of one Ishmael Bush ?" "True; it is in virtue of a compactum--" "I know but little of the virtue of packing, though I follow trapping, in my old age, for a livelihood.

They tell me that skins are well kept in the new fashion; but it is long since I have left off killing more than I need for food and garments.