was he who came,
With frill and ruffle and curl--
They dressed so queerly in the days
When grandmother was a girl!

"Knickerbockers" they called them then,
When they spoke of the things at all--
Grandfather wore them, buckled and trim,
When he sallied forth to call.
Grandmother's eyes were youthful then--
His "guiding stars," he said;
While she demurely watched her wheel
And spun with a shining thread.

Frill, and ruffle, and curl are gone,
But the "knickers" are with us still--
And so is love and the spinning wheel,
But we ride it now--if you will!
In grandfather's "knickers" I sit and watch
For the gleam of a lamp afar;
And my heart still turns, as theirs, methinks,
To my wheel and my guiding star.

The Love Story of the "Sage of
Monticello"

American history holds no more beautiful love-story than that of
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and author of
the Declaration of Independence. It is a tale of single-hearted,
unswerving devotion, worthy of this illustrious statesman. His love
for his wife was not the first outpouring of his nature, but it was
the strongest and best--the love, not of the boy, but of the man.

Jefferson was not particularly handsome as a young man, for he was
red-haired, awkward, and knew not what to do with his hands, though he
played the violin passably well. But his friend, Patrick Henry, suave,
tactful and popular, exerted himself to improve Jefferson's manners
and fit him for general society, attaining at last very pleasing
results, although there was a certain roughness in his nature, shown
in his correspondence, which no amount of polishing seemed able to
overcome.

John Page was Jefferson's closest friend, and to him he wrote very
fully concerning the state of his mind and heart, and with a certain
quaint, uncouth humour, which to this day is irresistible.

For instance, at Fairfield, Christmas day, 1762, he wrote to his
friend as follows:

"DEAR PAGE

"This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and
jolity, sees me overwhelmed with more and greater
misfortunes than have befallen a descendant of Adam for
these thousand years past, I am sure; and perhaps, after
excepting Job, since the creation of the world.

"You must know, Dear Page, that I am now in a house
surrounded by ene