And, without implying any license to dispute about tastes—which, from time immemorial, have been considered out of the pale of controversy—Edgar’s choice was well justified by her qualities, both of mind and person. She was considerably above the medium height, with the free carriage, which health and elastic spirits always give. Even now, though nearly forty years have passed, and she has borne and nurtured a numerous family, her bearing is more erect and graceful than that of many a girl within her ’teens. Dark hair and eyes, with a well arched brow—cheeks a little embrowned by exposure to the sun and wind—a nose rather aquiline than straight—a pleasant mouth, with red lips, which were never known to tremble, save in talking to the Ranger; a round, full chin, surmounting, like an Ionic capital, the marble column of her neck, and a figure, which united the freedom of rural life with the elegance of city cultivation; these were her attractions. Captain Edgar was a lucky fellow—for she loved him with all the fervor of the wilderness; and by nothing in her education had she learned to act as if ashamed of her affection. He was well worthy of such a bride. Tall, elegantly formed, active, and graceful, he was the very type of a young frontiersman. Gait, carriage, voice, and countenance, were all in unison with the open, manly spirit of his class. Preëminently brave among a people noted for courage; able as a leader, where, in order to lead, superiority must be plainly seen and deeply felt; he was already, though scarcely five-and-twenty, the captain of a company of rangers, whose arduous task it was to protect a frontier of nearly an hundred miles from the depredations of the Indians. The latter, stirred up, as is universally believed in this country, by British agents, since the opening of the war, were gathering, in unprecedented numbers, along the lakes and on the Upper Mississippi; and, like bolts from a thunder-cloud, war parties were moving rapidly in all directions—falling, with the suddenness of Indian strategy, when their descent was least expected, and vanishing among the shadows of the forest, ere their blows could be returned. If the settlements on Shoal Creek had, as yet, escaped incursion, it was chiefly owing to the vigilance and activity of Edgar’s Rangers, and, in circumstances like these, it may well be supposed, that nothing, save the utmost confidence, would have induced the pioneers to trust so young a man with a responsibility so heavy.