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feet strewed the way as for a bridal march.
When the Colonel went away they were engaged to be married, as soon as he
could make certain arrangements which he represented to be necessary,
and quit the army. He wrote to her from Harding, a small town in the
southwest corner of the state, saying that he should be held in the
service longer than he had expected, but that it would not be more than a
few months, then he should be at liberty to take her to Chicago where he
had property, and should have business, either now or as soon as the war
was over, which he thought could not last long. Meantime why should they
be separated? He was established in comfortable quarters, and if she
could find company and join him, they would be married, and gain so many
more months of happiness.
Was woman ever prudent when she loved? Laura went to Harding, the
neighbors supposed to nurse Washington who had fallen ill there.
Her engagement was, of course, known in Hawkeye, and was indeed a
matter of pride to her family. Mrs. Hawkins would have told the first
inquirer that. Laura had gone to be married; but Laura had cautioned her;
she did not want to be thought of, she said, as going in search of a husband;
let the news come back after she was married.
So she traveled to Harding on the pretence we have mentioned, and was
married. She was married, but something must have happened on that very
day or the next that alarmed her. Washington did not know then or after
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