Great Britain,--and Mr. Gardner, the father of the lady whose
timely interposition had caused the moment's delay which had saved
the President from the terrible fate of his associates. Upon
the return of the _Princeton_ to Washington the dead were removed to
the Executive Mansion, and the day, so auspicious in the beginning,
ended in gloom.

Something in the way of romance is the sequel to that sad event.
A few months later Miss Gardner, the fair guest of the President
upon the ill-fated _Princeton,_ became his bride, and during the
remainder of his term of office did the honors of the Executive
Mansion.

The thousands of visitors who have, during the past sixty years,
passed through the spacious rooms of that Mansion, have paused
before a full-length portrait of one of the most beautiful of women.
Possibly the interest of no one who gazed upon her lovely features
was lessened when told that the portrait was that of the wife of
President Tyler, the once charming and accomplished Miss Gardner, whose
name is so closely associated with the long-ago chapter of sorrow and
of romance.

A thought pertaining to the domain of the real rather than of
the romantic is suggested by the sad accident upon the _Princeton._
But for the trifling incident which detained President Tyler from the
side of his Cabinet officers at the awful moment, the administration
of the Government would have passed to other hands. As the law
then stood, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would have
succeeded to the Presidency; and how this might have changed the
current of our political history is a matter of at least curious
speculation.

Remembering that--

"Two stars keep not
Their motion in one sphere,"

might not the removal of one have healed the widening breach in
the Whig party? What might have been its effect upon the grand
Internal Improvement Scheme--the darling project of Henry Clay?
what upon the determination of the Oregon Boundary Question--whether
by diplomacy or war? and how might the destiny of the "Lone Star,"
the Republic of Texas, have been changed? What might have been
the effect upon the political fortunes of Tyler's great antagonist,
around whom the aggressive forces of the party he had founded were
even then gathering for a life-and-death struggle against a
comparatively obscure rival in the Presidential campaign of 1844?

Trifles light as air are sometimes the pivots upon which hinge
momentous events.