About this time a very wealthy man who owned a farm near Lexington died. The State became involved in litigation, seeking to recover inheritance and ad valorem taxes from his estate, claiming he had died a resident of Kentucky. Similar litigation was pending in the State of New York.
Upon the recommendation of the Attorney General that special counsel was needed, the Governor appointed Colonel Caleb Saylor and ex-Chief Justice Dobson to represent the State. Without a great deal of trouble they collected eight hundred thousand dollars and were paid a fee of fifty thousand dollars for their services, thirty-five thousand of which by contract went to Colonel Saylor as senior counsel.
He and his wife had spent a pleasant week in New York while he made his investigation and compromised the State's claim. The day before they returned home they visited Tiffany's. Mrs. Saylor's love and respect for her husband were in no sense lessened when he invested three thousand dollars in two rings, which, though they were flawless gems, could scarcely be said to adorn his wife's tapering fingers and patrician hands.
His friends noticed that now, instead of singing his own praises, he could never say too much in laudation of his wife; and she clung to his arm and whispered sweet speeches into his ear as a bride of eighteen might do.
It was noticeable that the Colonel had grown to be adept at showering compliments upon his superiors and always had pretty speeches for their wives. On county court day he went out to the cattle market and shook hands all round with the farmers.
In the spring of 1899, about seven years before Colonel Saylor's marriage, Cornwall received an invitation to the commencement exercises of Wellesley and noticed that Mary was named as salutatorian of her class.
He sent her a set of "The American Poets," gilt-edged in white leather bindings, and received a note of thanks and an invitation to visit the Saylor home any time he found it convenient during the summer.
Mary came home the first of June and for a while enjoyed undisturbed the quiet of the old farmhouse. The neighbors, including Bradley and Rosamond Clay, were just beginning to call upon her and ask her to their entertainments when she received and accepted an offer as assistant teacher of mathematics at Wellesley. The first of September she returned to the college, stopping for several days in Washington and New York. The following summer she spent traveling with several girl graduates and the teacher of French in England, France and Italy. She sent Cornwall a remarkably fine photograph of herself taken at Rome.
This he framed and kept upon his dresser. His mother, seeing and admiring the picture, asked;—"Who is the young lady, John?"