afterward their eldest daughter,
Martha Jefferson Randolph, described it as follows:

"They left 'The Forest' after a fall of snow, light then,
but increasing in depth as they advanced up the country.
They were finally obliged to quit the carriage and proceed
on horseback. They arrived late at night, the fires were all
out, and the servants had retired to their own houses for
the night. The horrible dreariness of such a house, at the
end of such a journey, I have often heard both relate."

Yet, the walls of Monticello, that afterwards looked down upon so much
sorrow and so much joy, must have long remembered the home-coming of
master and mistress, for the young husband found a bottle of old wine
"on a shelf behind some books," built a fire in the open fireplace,
and "they laughed and sang together like two children."

And that life upon the hills proved very nearly ideal. They walked and
planned and rode together, and kept house and garden books in the most
minute fashion.

Births and deaths followed each other at Monticello, but there was
nothing else to mar the peace of that happy home. Between husband and
wife there was no strife or discord, not a jar nor a rift in that
unity of life and purpose which welds two souls into one.

Childish voices came and went, but two daughters grew to womanhood,
and in the evening, the day's duties done, violin and harpsichord
sounded sweet strains together.

They reared other children besides their own, taking the helpless
brood of Jefferson's sister into their hearts and home when Dabney
Carr died. Those three sons and three daughters were educated with his
own children, and lived to bless him as a second father.

One letter is extant which was written to one of the nieces whom
Jefferson so cheerfully supported. It reads as follows:

"PARIS, June 14, 1787.

"I send you, my dear Patsey, the fifteen livres you desired.
You propose this to me as an anticipation of five weeks'
allowance, but do you not see, my dear, how imprudent it is
to lay out in one moment what should accommodate you for
five weeks? This is a departure from that rule which I wish
to see you governed by, thro' your whole life, of never
buying anything which you have not the money in your pocket
to pay for.

"Be sure that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in
debt than to do without any article whatever which