"What nonsense to stand here bareheaded, and getting cold! and yet it seems as if something urged me to go back to the city. Yet, why should I dread anything here? or rather, why should I fear anything with such a prospect as I have before me?"
He turned, and entered the house; a dainty letter from his betrothed, brought that night from the city, lay upon his breast; but honey and gall mingled strangely in its offerings, and many a bitter word bore heavy on his heart. No one of all that merry party was readier for song, or jest, or manly sport, than he; and yet he, too, had his share of that bitter cup which mortals call sorrow.
CHAPTER VI.
ADDITIONS TO THE PARTY.—AN INDIAN OUTFIT.—A CONTESTED ELECTION.
The following day was Sunday, and was spent as most Sabbaths are spent by similar parties in such out-of-the-way places. A few members of the household drove off across the ice of the Western Bar to a little country church; but the goose-shooters cared not to display their half savage dress, and tanned and blistered faces, to the over-close inspection of the church-going farmers and their curious "women folks."