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him in September for Virginia to take leave of my friends. On our arrival at Washington, finding General Jackson there alone in the White House-soon to set out for Tennessee, where his family had preceded him-the General expressed a wish for my husband's company during the days he might still be detained there. This being acceded to, I pursued my journey alone, little dreaming that this detention of a few days was to deprive my husband of ever again seeing my mother, between whom and himself the warmest attachment existed. On reaching Edgehill, I found them all assembled under my brother's roof, soon to travel together northward again before the separation so dreaded by us all. My mother and Mary were to pass the winter with Mrs. Coolidge, in Boston, whilst Cornelia and Septimia were to accompany me to Havana. I found my mother still looking very delicate and troubled with sore throat, for which a gargle had been prescribed by my brother, Dr. Benjamin F. Randolph. She complained of a vertigo when she threw back her head in using it. The day appointed for our departure being close at hand, she had exerted herself more than usual in packing a trunk; the following day she had a sick-headache and kept her bed. She had all her life been subject to these headaches, but within the last few years had ceased to have them. One of my sisters expressed the hope that their recurrence might be a favorable symptom, a proof of returning vigor, as she had not had any thing of the sort since her illness eighteen months before, in Washington. We watched by her bedside, though feeling no

alarm at an affection which we had always been accustomed to see her suffer with for several days at a time. One of my sisters slept in the room with her, and before parting with her for the night, I gave my mother some arrow-root. Early next morning I was called and told she was worse. I hurried to her bedside but was too late to be recognized, a blue shade passed over the beloved face; it was gone and she lay as in sleep, but life had gone too. It was apoplexy. She died on the 10th of October, 1836, having just completed her sixty-fourth year on the 27th of September, ten years and three months after her father, and was laid by his side in the grave-yard at Monticello."

THE NEW YORK FUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATION

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MRS. DOLLY P. MADISON.

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WASHINGTON IRVING, in one of his letters, has given an amusing account of his troubles in Washington, in preparing to attend a levee given by President Madison. After a ludicrous description of his vexations, he says, he finally emerged into the blazing splendor of Mrs. Madison's drawing-room. Here he was most graciously received, and found a crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly and old women, and beautiful young ones. Mrs. Madison, he adds, was a fine, pretty, buxom dame, who had a smile and a pleasant word for every body. Her sisters, Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, were also present on this occasion, and looked "like the merry wives of Windsor."

Dorothy Payne, the second child of John and Mary Coles Payne, was born the 20th of May, 1772. Her mother was a daughter of William Coles, Esq., of Coles Hill; and was a lady of pleasing social manners. The family were Virginians, and though Mrs. Madison was born in the State of North Carolina, she ever prided herself on a title so dear to all its possessors: that of being a daughter of the old commonwealth. Her parents removed to Philadelphia when she was quite young, and joined the Society of Friends at that place. Here their little daughter was

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