The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1874-03-31
ed It was ber husband. Benoni Howard.
the couuterfeiter, who has been sentenced
10 Eve years hard labor in the peuiteulia.

A hoMANcE OF ruE WHITE HOUSE, -
Many year- pro lawyer IN the QUAKER
City, poor aud unknown to fame, fell in
love with beautiful youug ludy OF Bel
,imore, and bis love being reciprocateJ,
an engagement eusutd.
The mother Of the young lady, however,
did not view the engagement with salts.
faction or pleasure. Indeed, sho heartily
disxpproved OF it, for the young lawyer
was altogether too poor and obscure to
marry into one OF the wealtSiest Ind most
aris;ocratic Of Baltimore families. This,
at least, was the opinion of the young
girls mother, who, being very ambitious
and correspoudingly proud, desired that
her daughter should wed some person
prominent either 10 this or some other
country.
She brought all her influence TO bear
upon the girl, aud did all she possibly
could to induce her to give up her lover,
but failing she resorted-as mothers have
done before-to deception aud other
contemplate means to break off the en-
gagement. Letters were intercel ted,
handwriting initiated, servants bribed aud
falsehoods circulated promiscuously. The
natural and inevitable result was that
Misunderstanding arose between the be-
trothed for which neither in reality was
responsible. One day the lawyer receiv-
cd a note written in the handwriting Of
his .faneee accompanied by packet Of
letters and box Of trinkets. The note
stated that the writer had, upon careful
consideration and thought, decided tina:
sho did not love him as woman about 10
be his wife should, and for this aud other
reasons begged to be released from her
engagement.
The blow was hard one, and for
long time the lawyer felt its effects acute
ly. Under the impression that be had
been Tilted because he was poor aud un.
known, be determined to become rich
and famous, aud forthwith commenced
his "nobe ife" How well he succeeded
the nation knows, for in 1884, be was
made Secretary of State, Minister to Eu-
gland, and f.w years later was elected
President Of the United States.
Meanwhile his first love married very
rich merchant OF Phladephia, much
against her own will and only at the re.
peaed and prolonged solicitations Of her
mother. The marriage was not happy
one, for the wife neither loved nor
respected her husband Her cup oil bitter
uess was full when she heard OF the cleo.
ticn Of her lover as President, aud her
mother cup was quite oveIhowiug. She
pIunged into social dissipation in the hope
of forgetting her sorrows. For two or
three seasons she was the talk of the
Quaker City, where she went to reside
with her husband, and where their first
child was born. Her entertainments
were Of unusual elegance, her costum's
marvels of richness aud beauty, uod her
equipage the 6uest ever seen on Walnut
Street.
By and by scandal circulated about
her. Mrs. Grundy said she neglect, d
her family, and slauderou ly accused her
Of transferring ber affections to gentle.
man who is now United States Minister
at a European city. One by one her
| ITleuus Itll Ou, duu ultiiudteiN BIG "d6
snubbed most directly aud repeatedly.
She left her husband and went home to
her mother in Baltimore, where in few
months she died of consumption, brought
on by excessive and protracted dissipa.
ton. Her cruel and unnatural mother
never ceased to berate and upbraid her
for not marrying the lawyer, when 81
berself, by intercepting and forging let
ters, broke off the match. Her last houi s
wore spent in religious exercise, and it is
related that she wrote to her true aud
faithful lover, who, when she died, was
an ex. President, James Buchanan, asking
forgiveness, and stating that she had never
ceased to love him with all her heart and
soul.
This most romantic story is vouched
: for by reliable parties as true in every
particular, although for obvious reasons
the names are omitted. The story has a
moral. and there are many women in So
cisty to-day who had best apply it.
Truth, indeed, is stranger than fiction.