to his mettle.  When other lawyers were employed against him, Hamilton’s manner was that of a man who felt an easy superiority to the demands upon him; he took few notes; he was playful and careless, relying much upon the powerful declamation of his summing up.  But when Burr was in the case,—­Burr the wary, the vigilant, who was never careless, never inattentive, who came into court only after an absolutely exhaustive preparation of his case, who held declamation in contempt, and knew how to quench its effect by a stroke of polite satire, or the quiet citation of a fact,—­then Hamilton was obliged to have all his wits about him, and he was observed to be restless, busy, and serious.  There are now but two or three venerable men among us who remember the keen encounters of these two distinguished lawyers.  The vividness of their recollection of those scenes of sixty years ago shows what an impression must have been made upon their youthful minds.

If Hamilton and Burr divided equally between them the honors of the bar, Burr had the additional distinction of being a leader of the rising Democratic Party; the party to which, at that day, the youth, the genius, the sentiment, of the country were powerfully drawn; the party which, by his masterly tactics, was about to place Mr. Jefferson in the Presidential chair after ten years of ineffectual struggle.

All this enhanced the eclat of Theodosia’s position.  As she rode about the island on her pony, followed at a respectful distance, as the custom then was, by one of her father’s slaves mounted on a coach-horse, doubtless many a fair damsel of the city repined at her own homelier lot, while she dwelt upon the many advantages which nature and circumstances had bestowed upon this gifted and happy maiden.

She was a beautiful girl.  She inherited all her father’s refined beauty of countenance; also his shortness of stature; the dignity, grace, and repose of his incomparable manner, too.  She was a plump, petite, and rosy girl; but there was that in her demeanor which became the daughter of an affluent home, and a certain assured, indescribable expression of face which seemed to say, Here is a maiden who to the object of her affection could be faithful against an execrating world,—­faithful even unto death.

Burr maintained at that time two establishments, one in the city, the other a mile and a half out of town on the banks of the Hudson.  Richmond Hill was the name of his country seat, where Theodosia resided during the later years of her youth.  It was a large, massive, wooden edifice, with a lofty portico of Ionic columns, and stood on a hill facing the river, in the midst of a lawn adorned with ancient trees and trained shrubbery.  The grounds, which extended to the water’s edge, comprised about a hundred and sixty acres.  Those who now visit the site of Burr’s abode, at the corner of Charlton and Varick streets, behold a wilderness of very ordinary houses covering a dead level.  The hill has been