his "dear, departed saint" dragged into
newspaper notoriety was absolute torture. Denial was useless, and
pleading had no effect. After he had retired to his home at Wheatland,
and when he was past seventy--when Anne Coleman's beautiful body had
gone back to the dust, there was a long article in a newspaper about
the affair, accompanied by the usual misrepresentations.

To a friend, he said, with deep emotion: "In my safety-deposit box in
New York there is a sealed package, containing papers and relics which
will explain everything. Sometime, when I am dead, the world will
know--and absolve."

But after his death, when his executors found the package, there was a
direction on the outside: "To be burned unopened at my death."

He chose silence rather than vindication at the risk of having Anne
Coleman's name again brought into publicity. In that little parcel
there was doubtless full exoneration, but at the end, as always, he
nobly bore the blame.

It happened that the letter he had written to her father was not in
this package, but among his papers at Wheatland--otherwise that
pathetic request would also have been burned.

Through all his life he remained true to Anne's memory. Under the
continual public attacks his grief became one that even his friends
forebore to speak of, and he had a chivalrous regard for all women,
because of his love for one. His social instincts were strong,
his nature affectionate and steadfast, yet it was owing to his
disappointment that he became President. At one time, when he was in
London, he said to an intimate friend: "I never intended to engage
in politics, but meant to follow my profession strictly. But my
prospects and plans were all changed by a most sad event, which
happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As a distraction from my
grief, and because I saw that through a political following I could
secure the friends I then needed, I accepted a nomination."

A beautiful side of his character is shown in his devotion to his
niece, Harriet Lane. He was to her always a faithful father. When she
was away at school or otherwise separated from him, he wrote to her
regularly, never failing to assure her of his affection, and received
her love and confidence in return. In 1865, when she wrote to him of
her engagement, he replied, in part, as follows:

"I believe you say truly that nothing would have induced you
to leave me, in good or evil fortune, if I had wished you