The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1874-06-06
The Wedding of Bessie Stewart

The Wedding of Bessie Stewart.
| Gath's Washington Correspondence of the Ckicac,
Tribune.
| attended the grand wedding, so-calIed
/ though ii very nOTne-IIke IaSteIu
affair, except for the great house where il
was given, of Miss Bessie Stewart anG
Lieutenant commander Hooker, of the navy
/ Miss Stewart is the daughter of Senator
Stewart of Nevada, and the grand daughter,
on the side of her mother, of ex-senator and
| Governor Foote, of Mississippi-that cele.
brated old man of combativeness, who
wanted to fight duel the other day with
Jefferson Davis, at the age of seventy-four,
and who was in the Senate twenty-seYen
years ago.
She is really a fine girl, blonde with
large blueish eyes, clear skin a tall figure,
and sensibility and melriment in her expires
sion-rather OF that order Of ladies who are
called queenly. She is of two intrepid
races. which accept war or matrinony with
out much irresolution; and, with father
alleged to be wealthy, q superior social
position, very complete European educa-
tion and superb home, she saw the man
she loved, and, at the age of nineteen, sur
rendered. He bad, however, his own fight
to make, and when it was over. he felt like
a great lieutenant commander indeed.
Hooker was his name, a cousin, or some
thing, of Fighting Joe Hooker, and though
smaller, much the same kind of lnalt in
profile and pride of countenance, but dark,
mottled, and of nervous, quick, vehement
speech. He was probably thirty or less in
years, and without fortune-simply with
his pay. lie gained the affections of Mrs
Stewart very soon in the cruise around the
daughter. Her husband, who is always
three parts boy, saw no good reason why
two young people who were together pretty
much all the time should not have q license
not to 60 away from each other at all. So
they were married, as it seemed to us out
sdeTs, without a particle of that rougllIless
which attends the course of true love-yet
who knows? Perhaps she fought against
this long captivity of surrender. Perhaps
he nearly broke his heart, and went home
to his mother and put his head in her lap
like little boy. Perhaps he deserted over
to her mother, and begged for her interces-
sion and gotit: for how can you compliment
mother like wanting to die for her
daughters face and love? Perhaps he went
up to Senator William Stewart and said,
while they took a glass of grog:
eff | can't have You for a father-n-law,
You can have me for cremation!"
Anyway, the young lady's sllitors said
s. lIooker's a stuck-up fellow. He's lust
worried that girl till he got her. That's
his way of doing things-just putting on
cheek and demanding thcm'
Everybody has said that since the world
began. When the morning stars sang
together the star that had tie best voice
was squinted at by all the other stars
THERE'S 10 mention of ii. i'm the Scriptures
but there are rcaSOTis for that.
The young ladies who had been married
said:
F" W hat foolish thing for Bessie Stewart
to do! Her father is rich. She is wooed
and admired. She keeps horses, and can
go to Europe or Saratoga. Her parents
worship her; and now she goes off just as
we did and inarries a young fellow who will
presently be ordered Off to Japan, or be
shot in the next war!"
Those young ladies, however, whose pros
poets of marriage seemed remote, made no
reply to these matrimonial quiddits They
SAID, if anything, that fine young man
like Hooker was a good exchange for accu-
mutations, and that no family could be
comfortable without such one.
Behold the Stewart mansion on the we'd
ding night, brilliantly lighted, and the rain
was splashing i'll /; hundred mirrors Of
puddles, so that the lights flashed up into
the faces of the hundreds of horses, drawing
every variety of eqnipage, each with its own
lights to sauce back at that great castellated
mansion flaming there, and in it two young
people fitting on their wedding garments.
How old the world is! The New Testament
refers to solitary man who strayed into
one OF these affairs without wedding gar
n i rrNl
proves the high antiquity of the swallow
tail coat.
The Stewart House, exteriorly, is beau
tifui conundrum, like one of those block
games which, perfectly composed, shows a
voluptuous figure, and makes one wonder
what it will be like, taken apart. 1t is a
light yellow house, with round tower,
spire shaped, and gives a great idea of
mysterious roominess. A petty, pretty
porte coehere, called in English front-door-
carriage porch, accom-. motlates callers i'll
front. There all teams were besieged as
the ladies in their illusion, satin. flowers
&c., carefully threw out white shod foot
and caromed into the shelter. [ saw a few
alight, and remembered the remark of that
wicked Joseph, or Moses that lie would
rather be a doorkeeper in the house of
Lord than todwell intents of Egypt. There
seemed to me to have been no particular
sacrifice about that request, unless our
friend had got weary of circus and become
a doorkeeper for the legitimate drama.
Entering the Stewart mansion, what do
we see? We see a splendid oyal-formed
hall, with winding staircase at the left;
and above this hall there are for every floor
duplicate staircases with q lordly sweep,
lighted to the lantern which is in the cupola
above the middle of the house. Down from
the upper circle of this open way light
pours from gas in eifulgence, and the walls
are freshly, perfectly white, while the floors
are generally waxed and shining. Out Of
this area or hall several doors open to
saloons of various sorts. Under the floor
on which we enter are all the culinary and
domestic arrangements, and Senator
Stewart's office and library-not open this
night. 8se
We are received by young naval officers
in full uniform, sworded, epauletted, chap
eaud, corded and with waxed mustaches.
They feel that this is q naval triumph.
break their rods. drop their envy and do
their duty.
kt,lte hath tsijia, :.