r the proceeds to his
friend and erstwhile benefactor. And so Burr came home to America.

I think the nicest part of all this is Vanderlyn's loyal silence about
the older man's affairs. It is likely that he knew more about Burr's
troubles and perplexities and mistakes than any other man, but he was
fiercely reticent on the subject. Once a writer approached Vanderlyn
for some special information. It was after Burr's death, and the
scribe had visions of publishing something illuminating about this
most mysterious and inscrutable genius.

"And now about Burr's private life," he insinuated confidentially.

The artist turned on him savagely.

"You let Burr's private life alone!" he snarled.

The author fled, deciding that he certainly would do just that!

Burr came home. But fate was not through with him yet. Dear Theo set
sail without delay, from South Carolina, to meet her father in New
York. He had been gone years, and she was hungry for the sight of him.
Her little son had died, and father and daughter longed to be together
again.

Her boat was the _Patriot_--and the _Patriot_ has never been heard from
since she put out. She was reported sunk off Cape Hatteras, but for many
years a haunting report persisted that she had been captured by the
pirates that then infested coastwise trade. So Theodosia--barely thirty
years old--vanished from the world so far as we may know. The dramatic
and tragic mystery of her death seems oddly in keeping with her life and
that of her father. Somehow one could scarcely imagine Theo growing old
peacefully on a Southern plantation!

Her father never regained his old eagerness for life after her loss.
He lived for years, practised law once more with distinction and
success on Nassau Street, even made a second marriage very late in
life, but I think some vivid, vital, romantic part of him, something
of ambition and fire and adventure, was lost at sea with his child
Theodosia.

And now shall we go back, for a few moments only, to Richmond Hill?

Counsellor Benson (or Benzon) is generally supposed to have been the
last true-blue celebrity to inhabit the famous old house. He was
Governor of the Danish Islands, and an eccentric. Our old friend
Verplanck says that he himself dined there once with thirteen others,
all speaking different languages.... "None of whom I ever saw before,"
he states, "but all pleasant fellows.... I, the only American, the
rest of every different nation in Europe