Meanwhile, the sun of love dawned on his horizon. In one of his rides he chanced to pass, one warm summer day, through the little town of Victor, in the neighboring County of Ontario. Being thirsty, he drew rein near a house where a gentleman was at work in the yard, whom he asked for a drink of water. As the one addressed went to the well for a fresh bucketful of the cooling liquid, he called to his daughter Vilate, to fetch a glass from the house, which he filled and sent by her to the young stranger.
Heber was deeply impressed with the beauty and refined modestly of the young girl, whose name he understood to be "Milaty," and who was the flower and pet of her father's family. Lingering as long as propriety would permit, or the glass of water would hold out, he murmured his thanks and rode reluctantly away.
How suggestive this incident, of Whittier's pretty tale, "Maud
Muller:"
"Thanks" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
It was not long before he again had "business" in Victor, and again became thirsty (?) just opposite the house where the young lady lived. Seeing the same gentleman in the yard whom he had accosted before, he hailed him and asked him for a cup of water. This time the owner of the premises offered to wait upon him in person, but Heber, with the blunt candor for which he was noted, nearly took the old gentleman's breath by saying, "if you please, sir, I'd rather My-Laty would bring it to me."
"Laty," as she was called in the house, accordingly appeared and did the honors as before, and returned blushing to meet the merriment and good-natured badinage of her sister and brothers.
She, however, was quite as favorably impressed with the handsome young stranger, as he with her. More visits followed, acquaintance ripened into love, and on the 7th of November, 1822, they were married.
Vilate Murray—for that was her name—was the youngest child of
Roswell and Susannah Murray. She was born June 1st, 1806, in Florida,
Montgomery County, New York. At the time of her marriage she was only
in her seventeenth year.
The Murrays, like the Kimballs, were of Scotch descent, and came to America during the Seven Years' War. As a race they were gentle, kind-hearted, intelligent and refined. Through many of them ran a vein of poetry. Vilate herself wrote tender and beautiful verses. She was an ideal wife for a man like Heber C. Kimball, by whom she was ever cherished as the treasure that she was.
Heber was now past twenty-one, and fast developing into as fine a specimen of manhood as one might wish to behold. Tall and powerful of frame, with piercing black eyes that seemed to read one through, and before whose searching gaze the guilty could not choose but quail, he moved with a stateliness and majesty all his own, as far removed from haughtiness and vain pride, as he from the sphere of the upstart who mistakes scorn for dignity, and an overbearing manner as an evidence of gentle blood.