"What I would like best, then, would be to go up to that place of yours in the high mountains. It was there that you suffered most on my account; I want you to rejoice and be happy there, Boyd, by way of recompense."
"But it's rough living up there, Margaret; perhaps you'd find it——"
"I'd find it delightful. How could it be otherwise, with just you and me there?"
"It shall be so then. Nothing could delight me more. I'll get Theonidas to carry my things back up there at once. They are still at Judy's. And we'll take along with us whatever baggage you want."
"That will be very little. It is the air, the sunshine, the rain, the freedom and you, Boyd, that I want. And besides, you know you have forbidden me to have a trousseau. I'll be a wood nymph or a water witch or something of that sort, and such beings do not bother with baggage, I suppose."
During the next week, Westover was speaking day and night, all over the district. He really cared nothing for the office he was running for, but it was his temperament to do his mightiest to win in any contest in which he had a part, and in this case he had the additional impulse to gratify Margaret by securing the biggest majority possible for his election.
Meanwhile, in his enthusiasm, Colonel Conway forgot all about his gout, and busied himself in the fulfilment of the promise he had long ago given, to fill The Oaks at the wedding time with the most brilliant company the country could furnish, and to have feasting there of a kind that might make the occasion memorable. He even made a journey to Washington and fairly forced his old commander in the Mexican War, General Scott, to be a guest, honored and honoring the occasion.
Judy Peters was also an honored guest. When Westover learned at last what part she had borne in his nomination and in his campaign, he rode all the way up to her place to persuade her to come. And when the time arrived, he sent the Wanalah carriage to fetch her. She appeared at the ceremony, in a gown more gaudily gorgeous than any that had been seen in that region since "the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."
Colonel Conway devoted his particular attention to her. Among other special courtesies he shared with her a bottle of precious old Madeira—too precious, as he told her, to be "wasted on a lot of young fellows whose palates are not educated up to it."
She drank the wine with relish, and after the third thimbleful glass she gave judgment.