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Show - Lincoln mm WITH mi TODD Reports That the Great President and His Wife Were Incompati ble Are Without Truth, According Accord-ing to One Who Knew Them Well. THERE are stories, some of them written into tliu biographies of the martyred president. Unit the married life of Abraham and Mary Tnclil Lincoln was unhappy. These stories so so f:ir ns to say (hut when the wedding day came arovmd 5SK 1 ' A 4 ; ' I ' 1 -j : is - t 4 N '..I i l f - Sv-r J; Mary Todd Lincoln, as She Appeared in the White House. they tlx ill.1 dale in l;-P! the gnosis arrived and lln bride appeared in her llnery. hm 1 1 u' . ! ret.ah.o.l uw;:y : that tinally, wh. a Pi 1 marry. Mary Ted i . . 1 . .c ! :i a",l "married "mar-ried 1 1 i i ! l in 'i - one ami pet ry spite '. on him throat: . ' with Lillr.:' : lyr s;l0. rihee. "A ii.. ... KaLi1 calls this in his book, "Personal Recollections Recol-lections of Abraham Lincoln." ! Mr. Rankin was a schoolboy who a-cted as court messenger at Petersburg, Peters-burg, 111., while his father was sheriff, when he first met Mr. Lincoln, theu a rising young lawyer. Later he was a student in the Lincoln and Herndou law orlice in Springfield, admitted to the family circle. The picture of Mary Todd which Mr. KanUin draws is a charming one. Though not beautiful he was decidedly decided-ly pretty, he says, van clear blue eyes which looked through one, and a mobile mo-bile face which was responsive to her every thought. She was easily the belle of Springfield during her residence resi-dence there with a married sister, her own home being in Lexington, Ky. Her futility objected to Lincoln because of his humble parentage and his poverty, and their engagement was broken off, but two years later Mary Todd delied the family opposition and wedded the man of her choice. Mrs. Lincoln was not only attractive, but she was cultured, Mr. Kankin says, and throughout her married life, at least until the tragedy of the assassination, assassi-nation, she kept up her French reading read-ing and other literary pursuits. Hers was a keen political perception amounting to almost prevision, too, and her advice was that most carefully weighed by Lincoln in his political and public affairs. All the world knows that when Lincoln Lin-coln received the news of his nomination nomina-tion he said : "There is a little w nua.u over on Eighth street who is deeply interested in-terested in this news; I will carry it to her," and he left his cheering, congratulating con-gratulating friends to hurry to Tiis home. Not so well known is the fact that the happiest person in Spi-inuticid was Mrs. Lincoln, and that she neer closed her eyes that night, for fear she would miss some of the town's joy over the honor done its brilliant son. Mrs. Lincoln's terrible sorrow on the death of the martyr drove her abroad "the loneliest of all the wives widowed by the Civil war" and she was allowed to spend the lasi years of her life "amid chilling i:c gleet and misrepresentation." Mr. Kankin says, but ho adds that when history shall rolled the truth, in rime to come it' it is not already here, "she will '. e awarded the recognition her nieriis have always deserved. Till then she can wait; for. like her husband, she belongs to the ages." |