“It is a beautiful place, but the grand and sublime I left
     at Richmond Hill” ...

In 1797, the house went to a rich foreigner named Temple.  I quote the chronicles of old New York, but can give you little information concerning this gentleman.  The only thing at all memorable or interesting about him seems to have been the fact that he was robbed of a large quantity of money and valuables while at the Hill, that the thieves were never discovered and that for this reason at least he filled the local press for quite a time.  His occupancy seems to have been short, and, save for the robbery, uneventful (if he really was a picturesque and adventurous soul, I humbly ask pardon of his ghost, but this is all I can find out about him!)—­for it was in that self-same year that the Burrs came to live at Richmond Hill, and Temple passed into obscurity as far as New York history is concerned.

Mrs. Burr, that older Theodosia who was the idol of Aaron Burr’s life, had died three years before, and little Theo was now the head of his household.  Have you ever read the letters that passed between these three, by the bye?  They are so quaint, so human, so tender—­I believe that you will agree with me that such reading has more of charm in it than the most dramatic modern novel.  They bemoan their aches and pains and cheer each other up as though they were all little Theo’s age.  “Passed a most tedious night,” writes Mrs. Burr, and adds that she has bought a pound of green tea for two dollars!  And—­“Ten thousand loves. Toujours la votre Theodosia.”

Burr writes that he has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a draught “composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs.”  When their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair.  “Stage after stage without a line!” complains Theodosia the mother, in one feverishly incoherent note.  And Theodosia the daughter, even at nine years old, had her part in this correspondence.

Her father writes her that from the writing on her last envelope, he thought the letter must come from some “great fat fellow”!  He advises her to write a little smaller, and says he loves to hear from her.  Then he whimsically reproaches her for not saying a word about his last letter to her, nor answering a single one of his questions:  “That is not kind—­it is scarcely civil!”

When little Theodosia was eleven her mother died, and henceforward she was her father’s housekeeper and dearest companion.  She is said to have been beautiful, brilliant and fascinating even from her babyhood, and certainly the way in which she took charge of Richmond Hill at the age of fourteen would have done credit to a woman with at least another decade to her credit.