he lord of the mansion was chilly and serious. An
hour before he had taken the step which made the duel with Hamilton
inevitable, though eleven days were to elapse before the actual
encounter. He was tempted to prepare the mind of his child for the
event, but he forebore. Probably his mind had been wandering into the
past, and recalling his boyhood; for he quoted a line of poetry which
he had been wont to use in those early days. "Some very wise man has
said," he wrote,

"'Oh, fools, who think it solitude to be alone!'

"This is but poetry. Let us, therefore, drop the subject, lest it lead
to another, on which I have imposed silence on myself." Then he
proceeds, in his usual gay and agreeable manner, again urging her to
go on in the pursuit of knowledge. His last thoughts before going to
the field were with her and for her. His last request to her husband
was that he should do all that in him lay to encourage her to improve
her mind.

The bloody deed was done. The next news Theodosia received from her
father was that he was a fugitive from the sudden abhorrence of his
fellow-citizens; that an indictment for murder was hanging over his
head; that his career in New York was, in all probability, over
forever; and that he was destined to be for a time a wanderer on the
earth. Her happy days were at an end. She never blamed her father for
this, or for any act of his; on the contrary, she accepted without
questioning his own version of the facts, and his own view of the
morality of what he had done. He had formed her mind and tutored her
conscience. He _was_ her conscience. But though she censured him not,
her days and nights were embittered by anxiety from this time to the
last day of her life. A few months later her father, black with
hundreds of miles of travel in an open canoe, reached her abode in
South Carolina, and spent some weeks there before appearing for the
last time in the chair of the Senate; for, ruined as he was in fortune
and good name, indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey, he was
still Vice-President of the United States, and he was resolved to
reappear upon the public scene, and do the duty which the Constitution
assigned him.

The Mexican scheme followed. Theodosia and her husband were both
involved in it. Mr. Alston advanced money for the project, which was
never repaid, and which, in his will, he forgave. His entire loss, in
consequence of his connection with that affair, may be recko