s board. Butler bade him be of good cheer, and, without any
formal proposition or agreement, took him and his belongings to his own
house and domesticated him there as a permanent guest, with Lincoln's
tacit compliance rather than any definite consent. Later Lincoln shared
a room and genial companionship, which ripened into closest intimacy, in
the store of his friend Joshua F. Speed, all without charge or expense;
and these brotherly offerings helped the young lawyer over present
necessities which might otherwise have driven him to muscular handiwork
at weekly or monthly wages.

From this time onward, in daily conversation, in argument at the bar, in
political consultation and discussion, Lincoln's life gradually
broadened into contact with the leading professional minds of the
growing State of Illinois. The man who could not pay a week's board bill
was twice more elected to the legislature, was invited to public
banquets and toasted by name, became a popular speaker, moved in the
best society of the new capital, and made what was considered a
brilliant marriage.

Lincoln's stature and strength, his intelligence and ambition--in short,
all the elements which gave him popularity among men in New Salem,
rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village. On the
other hand, his youth, his frank sincerity, his longing for sympathy and
encouragement, made him peculiarly sensitive to the society and
influence of women. Soon after coming to New Salem he chanced much in
the society of Miss Anne Rutledge, a slender, blue-eyed blonde, nineteen
years old, moderately educated, beautiful according to local
standards--an altogether lovely, tender-hearted, universally admired,
and generally fascinating girl. From the personal descriptions of her
which tradition has preserved, the inference is naturally drawn that her
temperament and disposition were very much akin to those of Mr. Lincoln
himself. It is little wonder, therefore, that he fell in love with her.
But two years before she had become engaged to a Mr. McNamar, who had
gone to the East to settle certain family affairs, and whose absence
became so unaccountably prolonged that Anne finally despaired of his
return, and in time betrothed herself to Lincoln. A year or so after
this event Anne Rutledge was taken sick and died--the neighbors said of
a broken heart, but the doctor called it brain fever, and his science
was more likely to be correct than their psychology