happy, and the certainty that they should often
meet. And, on his return to New York, he told her that he had
approached his home as he would "the sepulchre of all his friends."
"Dreary, solitary, comfortless. It was no longer _home_." Hence his
various schemes of a second marriage, to which Theodosia urged him. He
soon had the comfort of hearing that the reception of his daughter in
South Carolina was as cordial and affectionate as his heart could have
wished.

Theodosia now enjoyed three as happy years as ever fell to the lot of
a young wife. Tenderly cherished by her husband, whom she devotedly
loved, caressed by society, surrounded by affectionate and admiring
relations, provided bountifully with all the means of enjoyment,
living in the summer in the mountains of Carolina, or at the home of
her childhood, Richmond Hill, passing the winters in gay and luxurious
Charleston, honored for her own sake, for her father's, and her
husband's, the years glided rapidly by, and she seemed destined to
remain to the last Fortune's favorite child. One summer she and her
husband visited Niagara, and penetrated the domain of the chieftain
Brant, who gave them royal entertainment. Once she had the great
happiness of receiving her father under her own roof, and of seeing
the honors paid by the people of the State to the Vice-President.
Again she spent a summer at Richmond Hill and Saratoga, leaving her
husband for the first time. She told him on this occasion that every
_woman_ must prefer the society of the North to that of the South,
whatever she might say. "If she denies it, she is set down in my mind
as insincere and weakly prejudiced." But, like a fond and loyal wife,
she wrote, "Where you are, there is my country, and in you are centred
all my wishes."

She was a mother too. That engaging and promising boy, Aaron Burr
Alston, the delight of his parents and of his grandfather, was born in
the second year of the marriage. This event seemed to complete her
happiness. For a time, it is true, she paid dearly for it by the loss
of her former robust and joyous health. But the boy was worth the
price. "If I can see without prejudice," wrote Colonel Burr, "there
never was a finer boy"; and the mother's letters are full of those
sweet, trifling anecdotes which mothers love to relate of their
offspring. Her father still urged her to improve her mind, for her own
and her son's sake, telling her that all she could learn would
necessaril