uff old Judge Tom Brown, saw the bridegroom
placing the ring on Miss Todd's finger, and repeating after the
minister, "With this ring"--"I thee wed"--"and with all"--"my worldly
goods"--"I thee endow"--he exclaimed, in a stage whisper:

"Grace to Goshen, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!"

In a letter to Speed, not long after this event, the happy bridegroom
wrote:

"We are not keeping house but boarding at the Globe Tavern, which is
very well kept now by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our rooms are
the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and boarding only costs four
dollars a week (for the two). I most heartily wish you and your family
will not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a week in advance, and
we will have a room prepared for you and we'll all be merry together for
a while."

CHAPTER XV

LINCOLN & HERNDON

YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN

Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years,
dissolving partnership in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in
behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to
Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed
to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable,
and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy"
with him in a business of his own.

Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess,
opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partnership. While the
young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor
steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's
business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt"
largely due to his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems
rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But
young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over
his older friend and partner.

While yet in partnership with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the
national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for
Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.

Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed:

"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint
delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the
delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my
attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so tha