ese hard times."

"I told Jack to let me know if I could do anything to help," Samson
assured them.

Sarah turned to Abe Lincoln with a smile and said: "As we were coming
through the village Mary Owens asked me to tell you that on account of
the hard times she was not going to have a public wedding."

The chairman of the finance committee laughed and answered: "That old
joke is still alive. She writes me now and then and tells me what she is
doing in the way of preparation. It's really a foolish little farce we
have been playing in--a kind of courtship to avoid marriage. We have gone
too far with it."

A bit later he wrote a playful letter to Mary and told her that there was
so much flourishing about in carriages and the like in Springfield he
could not recommend it to a lady of good sense as a place of residence.
He said that owing to certain faults in his disposition he could not
recommend himself as a husband; that he felt sure she could never be
happy with him. But he manfully offered to marry her as soon as his
circumstances would allow if, after serious consideration, she decided
that she cared to accept him. It was, on the whole, one of the most
generous acts in the history of human affairs.

There is some evidence that Mary was displeased with these and other
lines in the little drama and presently rang down the curtain. Some of
the spectators were informed by her that Abe Lincoln was crude and
awkward and without a word to please a lady of her breeding. But she had
achieved the credit, with certain people, of having rejected a young
man for whom great honors were thought to be in store.

Late in November Mr. Lincoln went out on the circuit with the
distinguished John T. Stuart who had taken him into partnership. Bim's
letter to him bears an endorsement on its envelope as follows:

* * * * *

"This letter was forwarded from Vandalia the week I went out on the
circuit and remained unopened in our office until my return six weeks
later.--A. Lincoln."

* * * * *

The day of his return he went to Sarah and Samson with the letter.

"I'll get a good horse and start for Chicago to-morrow morning," said
Samson. "They have had a double blow. Did you read that Harry had been
killed?"

"Harry killed!" Mr. Lincoln exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that
Harry has been killed?"

"The Chicago Democrat says so but we don't believe it," said Samson