in Paris on the 29th of July, just three days before her ninth birthday.

Mrs. Adams thus describes her little guest, immediately after her departure, in a letter to her sister, Mrs. Cranch, of Massachusetts:

never saw.

"I have had with me for a fortnight a little daughter of Mr. Jefferson's, who arrived here with a young negro girl, her servant, from Virginia. Mr. Jefferson wrote me some months ago that he expected them, and desired me to receive them. I did so, and was amply rewarded for my trouble. A finer child of her age I So mature an understanding, so womanly a behavior, and so much sensibility, united, are rarely to be met with. I grew so fond of her, and she was so attached to me, that when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they were obliged to force the little creature away. She is but eight years old. She would sit, sometimes, and describe to me the parting with her aunt, who brought her up, the obligations she was under to her, and the love she had for her little cousins, till the tears would stream down her cheeks; and how I had been her friend, and she loved me. Her papa would break her heart by making her go again. She clung round me so that I could not help shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the favorite of every one in the house. I regret that such fine spirits must be spent in the walls of a convent. She is a beautiful girl, too."+

*

Marie, (for so we shall henceforth call her, unless

*Mrs. Francis Eppes, of Eppington, Va.

† Mrs. Adams' Letters, vol. ii., p. 179.

when adopting her father's sobriquet of Polly) was soon placed with Martha in the school of the Abbaye de Panthemont. Martha had now grown into a tall, graceful girl, with that calm, sweet face, stamped with thought and earnestness, which, with the traces of many more years on it, and the noble dignity of the matron superadded, beams down from the speaking canvass of Sully. The most dutiful of daughters, the most attentive of learners, possessing a solid understanding, a judgment ripe beyond her years, a most gentle and genial temper, and an unassuming modesty of demeanor which neither the distinction of her position, nor the flatteries that afterward surrounded her, ever wore off in the least degree, she was the idol of her father and family, and the delight of all who knew her.

The little Marie has been sufficiently described by Mrs. Adams. "Slighter in person than her sister, she already gave indications of a superior beauty. It was that exquisite beauty possessed by her mother-that beauty which the experienced learn to look upon with dread, because it betrays a physical organization too delicately fine to withstand the rough shocks of the world."

"In April, an incident of an interesting character occurred in Mr. Jefferson's family. His oldest daughter, as has been seen, had been educated in the views. and feelings of the Church of England. Her mother had zealously moulded her young mind in that direc tion. Her father had done nothing certainly, by word or act to divert it from that channel; and it had flowed

on, for aught Martha knew or suspected to the contrary, with his full approbation. If she had then been called upon to state what were her father's religious beliefs, she would have declared that her impressions were that he leaned to the tenets of the church to which his family belonged. The daring and flippant infidelity now rife in French society, disgusted the earnest, serious, naturally reverential girl. The calm seclusion of Panthemont, its examples of serene and holy life, its intellectual associations, wooed her away from the turmoil and glare and wickedness and eruptions without. After meditating on the subject for a time, she wrote to her father for his permission to remain in a convent, and to dedicate herself to the duties of a religious life.

For a day or two she received no answer. Then his carriage rolled up to the door of the Abbaye, and poor Martha met her father in a fever of doubts and fears. Never was his smile more benignant and gentle. He had a private interview with the Abbess. He then told his daughters he had come for them. They stepped into his carriage, it rolled away, and Martha's school life was ended.* Henceforth she was introduced into society, and presided, so far as was appropriate to her age, as the mistress of her father's household. * Neither he nor Martha ever, after her first letter on the subject, made the remotest allusion to each other to her request to enter a convent. She spoke of it freely in after years, to her

This happened April 22d, 1789.

children, and always expressed her full approbation of her father's course on the occasion. She always spoke of her early wish as rather the dictate of a transient sentiment, than a fixed conviction of religious duty; and she warmly applauded the quick and gentle way which her father took to lead her back to her family, her friends, and her country. Mr. Jefferson left the shores of Europe with his two daughters the 28th of October, 1789, and the following February Martha was married to Thomas Mann Randolph, jr., who had been a ward of her father's. "The young people were cousins, and had been attached to each other from childhood. He was tall, lean, with dark, expressive features and a flashing eye, commanding in carriage, elastic as steel, and had that sudden sinewy strength which it would not be difficult to fancy he inherited from the forest monarchs of Virginia.”

Mr. Jefferson was immediately tendered, and accepted a position in President Washington's cabinet and made his home in New York and afterward in Philadelphia until his withdrawal from public life.

After President Washington declined a re-appointment, Mr. Adams was elected to fill his place, and Mr. Jefferson the second position in the gift of the nation. In 1801, he was inaugurated President of the United States. His daughter Martha was living at her husband's country home near Monticello, the mother of several children, and Marie, who had previously married Mr. Eppes of Eppington, was happily situated at

Monticello awaiting her father's promised visit in early

summer.

Sir Augustus Foster, who was Secretary of Legation at Washington to the British Minister, Mr. Merry, has given some rather entertaining accounts of the state of society there in the time of Jefferson. "In going to assemblies, one had to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the risk of an overturn, or of being what is termed stalled, or stuck in the mud, when one can neither go backward nor forward, and either loses one's shoes or one's patience. Cards were a great resource of an evening, and gaming was all the fashion, for the men who frequented society were chiefly from Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of brag, the most gambling of all games. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they were looed, pronounced the word in a very mincing manner.

"The New Englanders, generally speaking, were very religious, but though there were many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians. But in spite of its inconveniences and desolate aspect, it was, I think, the most agreeable town to reside in for any length of time. The opportunity of collecting information from Senators and Representatives from all parts of the country -the hospitality of the heads of the Government and the Corps Diplomatique of itself, supplied resources such as could nowhere else be looked for." In Mr. Jefferson's time, the population numbered about