' There had been no elaborate _trousseau_ for the bride of
the future President of the United States, nor even a handsome wedding
gown; nor was it a gay wedding."
Two sisters of Mrs. Lincoln's who are still living, Mrs. Wallace
of Springfield, and Mrs. Helm of Elizabethstown, Kentucky, deny
emphatically that any wedding was ever arranged between Mr. Lincoln
and Miss Todd but the one which did take place. That the engagement
was broken after a wedding had been talked of, they think possible;
but Mr. Herndon's story, they deny emphatically.
"There is not a word of truth in it!" Mrs. Wallace broke out,
impulsively, before the question about the non-appearance of Mr.
Lincoln had been finished. "I never was so amazed in my life as when I
read that story. Mr. Lincoln never did such a thing. Why, Mary Lincoln
never had a silk dress in her life until she went to Washington."
[Illustration: REV. CHARLES DRESSER.
From a daguerreotype owned by his son, Dr. T.W. Dresser, Springfield,
Illinois. The Rev. Charles Dresser, who was the officiating clergyman
at the wedding of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, was born at Pomfret,
Connecticut, February 24, 1800. He was graduated from Brown University
in 1823, and went to Virginia, where he studied theology. In 1829 he
became an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church.
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