Now, the President knew that his assistant was romantically entangled with an affair of the heart. He also knew the fair young woman who was responsible for that state of things. Miss Susanna V. Pleasants lived five miles north of Richmond in a lovely old Virginia home which bore the Indian name of "Picquenocque." Knowing that a matrimonial alliance was imminent, the Doctor, one day, ventured to ask Charles about the date of the coming event. He warmly approved the match and was exuberant in congratulations. As a matter of fact he was hoping that the marriage would tend to fix his assistant more firmly in Richmond College. This genial intrusion into sacred privacy was not resented, but Charles found it inconvenient to confide. The question was asked in November, and at that very moment the issue to be decided between the sweethearts was whether the ceremony should come off on the last day of December, or the first of January following. That problem enabled the young gentleman to make a complete but truthful evasion. His honest reply was: "I know neither the day, nor the month, nor the year." There the matter ended, and the mystified Doctor relapsed into silence. Later the mighty problem was solved and the marriage was solemnized on the last day of 1840. Doctor Ryland, officiating, beamed on the happy pair and found great merriment in the perfectly true, but dextrously non-committal answer, made just six weeks before. The bride and groom had not quite reached their twenty-first birthdays when they began that remarkable human pilgrimage which was to endure a little more than sixty years. The angels of domestic peace and joy sang benediction all the way. That home life is a glorious memory now, but its lesson is more precious than gold. An astronomer discerned a luminous star. On closer inspection he found it, not single but binary. The twin stars joined their radiance, which came streaming down in one glorious pencil of light. Such a star beams forever in the Hollins firmament. CHAPTER II CALL OF THE SOUTHWEST 1846-1856 The attraction of the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains was a fact freely confessed by eastern Virginians. Even before the Revolutionary War the section, now known as the Tazewell country, became an Eldorado, and thitherward set the streams of migration. Along the beautiful valleys and in the hearts of the hills lay the possibilities of fabulous wealth. Through the early decades of the nineteenth century this fascination continued, population increased, centers of culture were formed, and men of enterprise began to think of a railroad from Lynchburg, Virginia, to East Tennessee. Christian evangelism was active, but education lagged. There were fine brains in the Southwest, but the means of culture were deficient. The land called for the school teacher. Slowly the providential workings were preparing a place for a young professor in Richmond College, who as yet had no dream of it.