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LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE.

In 1839, another Kentucky belle [Footnote: Addressing Kentuckians in
a speech made at Cincinnati, in 1859, Lincoln said: "We mean to marry
our girls when we have a chance; and I have the honor to say I once
did have a chance in that way."] arrived in Illinois to follow the
steps of her sister, who had found a conquest there. This Mrs. Edwards
introduced Miss Mary Todd, and she became the belle of the Sangamon
bottom. Lincoln was pitted against another young lawyer, afterward the
eminent Stephen A. Douglas, but, odd as it appears, Miss Todd singled
out the Ugly Duckling as the more eligible of the two. Whatever the
reason--strange in a man knowing how to bide his time to win--Lincoln
wrote to the lady, withdrawing from the contest, allowed to be
hopeless by him. His friend Speed would not bear the letter, but
pressed him to have a face-to-face explanation. The rogue--who was in
the toils himself, and was shortly wedded--believed the parley would
remove the, perhaps, imaginary hindrance. But Miss Todd accepted the
deliverance; thereupon they parted--but immediately the reconciliation
took place. The nuptials were settled, but here again Lincoln
displayed a waywardness utterly out of keeping with his subsequent
actions. He "bolted" on the wedding-day--New-year's, 1841. Searching
for him, his friends--remembering the fit after the Rutledge death--
found him in the woods like the Passionate Pilgrim of ancient romance.
Luckily he was inspirited by them with a feeling that an irrepressible
desire to live till assured that the world is "a little better for
my having lived in it." Seeing what ensued, one could say then "Good
_Speed_!" to his bosom friend of that name. But this friend