“What language can express the joy, the gratitude of Theodosia!” writes Mrs. Burr to her absent husband, in the fifth year of their marriage.

“Stage after stage without a line.  Thy usual punctuality gave room for every fear; various conjectures filled every breast.  One of our sons was to have departed to-day in quest of the best of friends and fathers.  This morning we waited the stage with impatience.  Shrouder went frequently before it arrived; at length returned—­no letter.  We were struck dumb with disappointment.  Barton [eldest son] set out to inquire who were the passengers; in a very few minutes returned exulting—­a packet worth the treasures of the Universe.  Joy brightened every face; all expressed their past anxieties, their present happiness.  To enjoy was the first result.  Each made choice of what they could best relish.  Porter, sweet wine, chocolate, and sweetmeats made the most delightful repast that could be enjoyed without thee.  The servants were made to feel their lord was well; are at this instant toasting his health and bounty.  While the boys are obeying thy dear commands, thy Theodosia flies to speak her heartfelt joy—­her Aaron safe—­mistress of the heart she adores, can she ask more?  Has Heaven more to grant?”

What a pleasing picture of a happy family circle is this, and how rarely are the perils of a second marriage so completely overcome!  It was in such a warm and pleasant nest as this that Theodosia Burr passed the years of her childhood.

Charles Lamb used to say that babies had no right to our regard merely as babies, but that every child had a character of its own by which it must stand or fall in the esteem of disinterested observers.  Theodosia was a beautiful and forward child, formed to be the pet and pride of a household.  “Your dear little Theo,” wrote her mother in her third year, “grows the most engaging child you ever saw.  It is impossible to see her with indifference.”  From her earliest years she exhibited that singular fondness for her father which afterward became the ruling passion of her life, and which was to undergo the severest tests that filial affection has ever known.  When she was but three years of age her mother would write:  “Your dear little daughter seeks you twenty times a day; calls you to your meals, and will not suffer your chair to be filled by any of the family.”  And again: 

“Your dear little Theodosia cannot hear you spoken of without an apparent melancholy; insomuch that her nurse is obliged to exert her invention to divert her, and myself avoid to mention you in her presence.  She was one whole day indifferent to everything but your name.  Her attachment is not of a common nature.”

Here was an inviting opportunity for developing an engaging infant into that monstrous thing, a spoiled child.  She was an only daughter in a family of which all the members but herself were adults, and the head of which was among the busiest of men.