One may smile and smile, and be a villain. Thornton Rush won his bride, and carried back to his northern home the young girl whose grace and beauty dazzled every eye. CHAPTER XXII. ALTHEA. Several years have passed. We find Althea a matron of twenty or more, but did we not know her age, we might think her five years older. She has not lost her beauty; though it is of a softer, more pensive kind. She is a gentle, quiet woman, beloved by the people of Windsor, for she makes no pretensions, and they have no shadow of suspicion that she deems herself their superior. But it is a never-ceasing wonder to the good and discerning that she ever came to marry Thornton Rush. Thornton Rush is a man of mark. He has his friends and his foes. To those whom he deems worthy of conciliating, will he fawn and cringe. Those whom he despairs of making his friends, or those whose friendship may do him no good, he alienates determinedly, and without scruple. For four years has he waged a perpetual warfare with the Captain. The odds would have been against him, had he not in his wife possessed one advantage. While Mrs. Sharp possessed by nature the qualities expressed by her name and made herself unpopular to the good women of Windsor, Althea, without premeditation or effort, was a universal favorite. Thornton Rush was well aware of this advantage, and he made the most of it. Like many another man, he did not like to come home and find his wife gone. He missed her as he would the sun from day. Althea was much inclined to remain at home; and Thornton would not often have found chance to grumble upon this score. He was not given to habits of self-denial; nevertheless, to secure good will and triumph over Sharp, he would encourage Althea to make frequent visits--nay, often insist upon it, against her inclination and his own private wish. If his wife could serve his policy, well and good. What was a wife for? There were those who regarded Thornton Rush with positive fear. They quailed beneath the flash of his eye. Such dared not openly oppose him and were outwardly his friends. Some, lacking powers of penetration, deemed him better than he was, and thought there must be much hidden good in one who had won so sweet a woman for a wife. Few dared exhibit, or openly proclaim the intense disaffection with which he had inspired them. But those who did were bitter and unrelenting in animosity; were enemies indeed, worthy of the name. Foremost among these was Carlton Sharp. This Captain still led a company well drilled and faithful. On the other side, Thornton Rush, since about it was no smell of gunpowder, trained a goodly crew, with which he met the Captain's line. Victory was not always upon one side. Politics is a very uncertain _res gestoe_. And human nature, more uncertain still, would vacillate from wing to wing, now being a Sharp's retainer, and anon a hanger-on of Rush. Such changelings would not count, but that their vote weighs heavily.