Punctual to the day and the hour of the afternoon he had set, Colonel Burr drove out to the Jumel House in his own gig, stepped out jauntily and assisted his companion to alight. This was David Bogart, D.D., of the Reformed Dutch Church, who just forty-nine years before, had married Aaron Burr to another rich widow, Theodosia Provost.' The gentlemen were admitted by a footman, and then began a negotiation so extraordinary that the whole performance has been rejected as mythical, by many who have heard the story. Certain of Burr's biographers have passed over his second marriage in silence; others have broadly hinted that the ceremony was dispensed with altogether in the union of the heiress with the bridegroom who had counted his seventy-eighth winter. 1 Mrs. Provost was ten years older than Burr, not handsome, but singularly pleasing in manner, accomplished and highly educated. He always declared that "she was without a peer among all the women he had known." She died in 1794. 20 N writing of what was not the least surprising of the events that made historic the mansion crowning Washington Heights, I shall consult data supplied by the nearest living relatives of Madame Jumel. If direct and authentic information were lacking, I should refrain from anything more than a passing allusion to the sudden nuptials and the rupture of the ill-advised bonds. It was an episode, but an important one, in a life that was all dramatic, from the hour that saw beautiful Eliza Bowen the bride of her mature and opulent suitor, to that in which the twice-widowed woman of ninety, majestic and still beautiful, lay in her coffin in the Fort Washington "tea-room," and her decease was noted as the removal of a social landmark. In spite of Colonel Burr's parting warning, Madame was totally unprepared for the apparition of an expectant bridegroom, while the message transmitted to her through their common favorite, the law student, to the effect that Colonel Burr would wait downstairs until she was ready to be married, routed even her matchless self-possession. To complicate the embarrassments of the position, her adopted daughter threw all her influence upon the side of the resolute suitor. The scene that ensued, as described by one who had it from an eyewitness, would have been absurd had it been less distressing. Madame was now in her fifty-seventh year, but retained her fine figure and noble carriage, with many vestiges of her remarkable beauty. Her complexion was that of a girl, her blue eyes were unfaded, her features mobile, and in expression exceedingly winning. Hers was a warm, deep heart, and the dearest things on earth to her were the two young creatures who knelt, one on each side of her, and pleaded Burr's cause, as she sat, bewildered and protesting, in her chair. While the young man praised him who, un der her influence, would regain his lost position in society and rise to yet loftier eminence in the profession in which he excelled, the beloved niece entreated her to consider what good would come to the whole household if Fort Washingsuch a head were given to it. ton was a dear and lovely home, but the aunt could not live there alone, especially after the burglary, and they-the pleaders-could not be always with her. What a comfort it would be to them to be assured of her safety and happiness in the keeping of the gallant gentleman who was as brave as he was fascinating! The petitioners had suffered more than they had allowed her to guess in seeing her bowed almost to breaking by the burden of business anxieties. The relief they would experience were these laid from her dear shoulders upon her adviser's ought to count for something in her consideration of Colonel Burr's suit. And so on, and so on, with coaxings, arguments, and caresses, until the balance of the cool head was overthrown by the warm heart. The passionate exclamation with which she finally drew her adopted child's head to her bosom showed this, and might have been a |