go forth with him to battle, and welcome him home. I can conceive of
some hushed and gracious home-spirit walking restless by night
because the heart and head of the house was afar or in danger. And a
house so charged with personality as that on Richmond Hall must have
had many a ghost,--of fireside and of garden close,--who wept for
fallen fortunes as they had rejoiced for gaiety and bright enterprise.

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were born antagonists: their
personalities, their ideals, their methods, were as diverse and as
implacably divergent as the poles. Hamilton, as a statesman, believed
that Burr was dangerous; and so he was: sky rockets and geniuses
usually are. Hamilton did his brilliant best to destroy the other's
power (it was chiefly due to his efforts that Burr missed the
Presidency), and, being a notably courageous man, he was not afraid to
go on warning America against him.

And so it all came about:--the exchange of letters--haughty,
courteously insolent, utterly unyielding on both sides--then the
challenge, and finally the duel.

I am glad to think that Theo Alston was safe among her husband's rice
fields at that time. She worshipped her father, and everything that
hurt him stabbed her to her devoted heart.

It was in an early, fragrant dawn--Friday the sixth of July,
1804--that Burr and his seconds left our beautiful Richmond Hill,
where the birds were singing and the pond just waking to the morning
light, for Weehawken Heights on the Jersey shore.

At about seven, Burr reached the ground which had been appointed. Just
after came Hamilton with his seconds, and the surgeon, Dr. Hosack. The
distance was punctiliously measured, and these directions read
solemnly to the principals:

"The parties, being placed at their stations, shall present and fire
when they please. If one fires before the other, the opposite second
shall say 1--2--3--fire; and he shall then fire or lose his fire."

Then came the word "Present!" from one of the witnesses. Both
duellists fired and Hamilton dropped. Burr was untouched. He stood for
a second looking at his fallen adversary, and then (as the story
goes), "with a gesture of profound regret, left the ground...."

Back to Richmond Hill and the troubled household gods. Burr was no
butcher, and he did not dislike Hamilton personally. I wonder how many
times he paced the cool dining-room with the balcony outside, and how
many times he refused meat or drink, befor