derstood to be engaged.

But the young lawyer, after his recent experience with Mary Owens,
distrusted his ability to make any woman happy--much less the belle from
Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated and exacting. He
seemed to grow morbidly conscious of his shortcomings, and she was
high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and, between such exceptional
natures, "the course of true love never did run smooth."

Their engagement, if they were actually betrothed, was broken, and the
lawyer-lover was plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long, morbid
letters to his friend Speed, who had returned to Kentucky, and had
recently married there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit the
Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and friendly sympathies and
counsel would revive his health and spirits.

In one of his letters Lincoln bemoaned his sad fate and referred to "the
fatal 1st of January," probably the date when his engagement or "the
understanding" with Mary Todd was broken. From this expression, one of
Lincoln's biographers elaborated a damaging fiction, stating that
Lincoln and his affianced were to have been married that day, that the
wedding supper was ready, that the bride was all dressed for the
ceremony, the guests assembled--but the melancholy bridegroom failed to
come to his own wedding!

If such a thing had happened in a little town like Springfield in those
days, the guests would have told of it, and everybody would have
gossiped about it. It would have been a nine days' wonder, and such a
great joker as Lincoln would "never have heard the last of it."

THE STRANGE EVENTS LEADING UP TO LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE

After Lincoln's return from visiting the Speeds in Louisville, he threw
himself into politics again, not, however, in his own behalf. He
declined to be a candidate again for the State Legislature, in which he
had served four consecutive terms, covering a period of eight years. He
engaged enthusiastically in the "Log Cabin" campaign of 1840, when the
country went for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," which means that General
William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, and John
Tyler were elected President and Vice-President of the United States.

In 1842 the young lawyer had so far recovered from bodily illness and
mental unhappiness as to write more cheerful letters to his friend Speed
of which two short extracts follow:

"It seems to me that I should have been entirely happy