Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/74

 cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her anxious eye; "did I think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would silence it for ever! Cora can say, if Cora would, how justly we have prized your services, and how deep—I had almost said, how fervent—is our gratitude!"

"And will Cora attest the truth of this?" cried Duncan, suffering the cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure. "What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of the knight, in the ardour of a soldier?"

Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face towards the water, as if looking on the plain sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes on the young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish that at once drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his mind.

"You are not well, dearest Miss Munro!" he exclaimed; "we have trifled, while you are in suffering!"