in my grandmother's
girlhood. That venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene,
and ever after made it her favorite narrative. Whether the edifice now
standing on the same site be the identical one to which she referred I
am not antiquarian enough to know, nor would it be worth while to
correct myself, perhaps, of an agreeable error by reading the date of
its erection on the tablet over the door. It is a stately church
surrounded by an enclosure of the loveliest green, within which appear
urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental marble, the
tributes of private affection or more splendid memorials of historic
dust. With such a place, though the tumult of the city rolls beneath
its tower, one would be willing to connect some legendary interest.

The marriage might be considered as the result of an early engagement,
though there had been two intermediate weddings on the lady's part and
forty years of celibacy on that of the gentleman. At sixty-five Mr.
Ellenwood was a shy but not quite a secluded man; selfish, like all
men who brood over their own hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions
a vein of generous sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always
an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object either of
public advantage or personal ambition; a gentleman, high-bred and
fastidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considerable
relaxation in his behalf of the common rules of society. In truth,
there were so many anomalies in his character, and, though shrinking
with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had been his fatality
so often to become the topic of the day by some wild eccentricity of
conduct, that people searched his lineage for a hereditary taint of
insanity. But there was no need of this. His caprices had their origin
in a mind that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose, and in
feelings that preyed upon themselves for want of other food. If he
were mad, it was the consequence, and not the cause, of an aimless and
abortive life.

The widow was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom in
everything but age as can well be conceived. Compelled to relinquish
her first engagement, she had been united to a man of twice her own
years, to whom she became an exemplary wife, and by whose death she
was left in possession of a splendid fortune. A Southern gentleman
considerably younger than herself succeeded to her hand and carried
her to Charleston, where