From this time onward, in daily conversation, in argument at the bar, in political consultation and discussion, Lincoln’s life gradually broadened into contact with the leading professional minds of the growing State of Illinois.  The man who could not pay a week’s board bill was twice more elected to the legislature, was invited to public banquets and toasted by name, became a popular speaker, moved in the best society of the new capital, and made what was considered a brilliant marriage.

Lincoln’s stature and strength, his intelligence and ambition—­in short, all the elements which gave him popularity among men in New Salem, rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village.  On the other hand, his youth, his frank sincerity, his longing for sympathy and encouragement, made him peculiarly sensitive to the society and influence of women.  Soon after coming to New Salem he chanced much in the society of Miss Anne Rutledge, a slender, blue-eyed blonde, nineteen years old, moderately educated, beautiful according to local standards—­an altogether lovely, tender-hearted, universally admired, and generally fascinating girl.  From the personal descriptions of her which tradition has preserved, the inference is naturally drawn that her temperament and disposition were very much akin to those of Mr. Lincoln himself.  It is little wonder, therefore, that he fell in love with her.  But two years before she had become engaged to a Mr. McNamar, who had gone to the East to settle certain family affairs, and whose absence became so unaccountably prolonged that Anne finally despaired of his return, and in time betrothed herself to Lincoln.  A year or so after this event Anne Rutledge was taken sick and died—­the neighbors said of a broken heart, but the doctor called it brain fever, and his science was more likely to be correct than their psychology.  Whatever may have been the truth upon this point, the incident threw Lincoln into profound grief, and a period of melancholy so absorbing as to cause his friends apprehension for his own health.  Gradually, however, their studied and devoted companionship won him back to cheerfulness, and his second affair of the heart assumed altogether different characteristics, most of which may be gathered from his own letters.

Two years before the death of Anne Rutledge, Mr. Lincoln had seen and made the acquaintance of Miss Mary Owens, who had come to visit her sister Mrs. Able, and had passed about four weeks in New Salem, after which she returned to Kentucky.  Three years later, and perhaps a year after Miss Rutledge’s death, Mrs. Able, before starting for Kentucky, told Mr. Lincoln probably more in jest than earnest, that she would bring her sister back with her on condition that he would become her—­Mrs. Able’s—­brother-in-law.  Lincoln, also probably more in jest than earnest, promptly agreed to the proposition; for he remembered Mary Owens as a tall, handsome, dark-haired girl, with fair skin and large blue eyes, who in conversation could be intellectual and serious as well as jovial and witty, who had a liberal education, and was considered wealthy—­one of those well-poised, steady characters who look upon matrimony and life with practical views and social matronly instincts.