No. It was not, as I have stated, a craven fear of personal injury that so preyed upon my spirit as to render sleep an impossibility—cowardice being as foreign to my nature as pusillanimity is to the panther’s. Rather, it was my ardent solicitude for those two beloved creatures most precious to my heart: my ever-devoted “Muddy” and her darling daughter, Virginia. Cognizant of the degree to which their felicity depended upon my own well-being, I could not fail to suffer the sharpest pangs of apprehension at the prospect of occasioning them so much dismay. The very mention of my impending encounter with Crockett would be sufficient, I knew, to induce within their bosoms the gravest tremors of alarm. And yet to withhold the truth seemed equally deplorable, given the holy atmosphere of uttermost trust and intimacy within which our three commingled souls abided. To confess or to prevaricate—this was the dilemma which had driven my thoughts into a tumult of agonized irresolution.

Thus the dreary hours dragged by—oh, at what a torturous pacel!—while, before my weary eyes, a radiant vision materialized in the tomb-like darkness of my bedchamber. The luminous apparition of my loved ones shimmered in the all-pervading gloom with the distinct and vivid brilliance of an opium-dream. I gazed upon the plain yet pleasing countenance of my Aunty Maria, whom—even more than the sweet, long-departed being who first gave me life—I adored as my own truest mother. Alongside that humble visage drifted the gentle lineaments of my dear little cousin Virginia, towards whom I felt all the fervor of devotion that a brother might direct towards his own darling sister. Indeed, the intensity of my feeling for this ethereal creature was such that I could not conceive of a life bereft of her heavenly presence. Thus, I was determined to bind her even more enduringly to my heart through the sacred knot of matrimony. Practical considerations, however, necessitated a temporary deferral of this plan, since—having only recently commemorated the twelfth anniversary of her birth—she had yet to arrive at that age which, from time immemorial, has signified the threshold of nubility.