"Mr. Foxcroft attends me. We will await you at his house, at noon, and if you come—as, God help me I believe you will—then I shall teach you what a maid's love can mean. Oh, to have you again, as I held you those long days on the trail; but you were too near death to know it!—too close to death to hear all I promised you if only you would live!
"Felicity."
"Mount!" I cried, all of a-tremble, "I shall wed this noon! Get me a parson, man!" And I began tearing off my buckskins and flinging them right and left, shouting for Jack the while, and dressing in my finest linen and my silver-gray velvet.
Now choking with the tears that I could not crush back, now smiling at the sunlight which yellowed the white walls of my chamber, I shouted at intervals for Mount, until the tap-boy came to say that Mount had gone out. So I bade the tap-boy hasten forth and buy me a large nosegay with streamers, and fetch it to me instantly; and then returned to my toilet with a feverish haste that defeated its own purpose.
At last, however, I hung my sword, dusted the hair-powder from frill and ruffle, buckled shoon and knees, and shook out the long soft lace over my cuffs. Then I found the ring I had bought in Albany, and placed it in my silver-webbed waistcoat with its flowered flaps of orange silk.
The inn clocks chimed for ten as the lad brought me a huge nosegay all fluttering with white silken streamers.
"Where is my companion?" I asked, red as a poppy under his grins.
"Below, sir," replied the lad, hesitating.
"Drunk?" I demanded, angrily.
"Tolerable," said the lad.