mall as he was, he had
a perfect grace and majesty of deportment, such as I have never seen in
this country, except perhaps in our friend Mr. Washington, and commanded
respect wherever he appeared.

In all bodily exercises he excelled, and showed an extraordinary
quickness and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my
two boys proficient in that art; so much so, that when the French came
to this country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was
superior to my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George,
who had taken the King's side in our lamentable but glorious war of
independence.

Neither my father nor my mother ever wore powder in their hair; both
their heads were as white as silver, as I can remember them. My dear
mother possessed to the last an extraordinary brightness and freshness
of complexion; nor would people believe that she did not wear rouge. At
sixty years of age she still looked young, and was quite agile. It was
not until after that dreadful siege of our house by the Indians, which
left me a widow ere I was a mother, that my dear mother's health broke.
She never recovered her terror and anxiety of those days which ended so
fatally for me, then a bride scarce six months married, and died in my
father's arms ere my own year of widowhood was over.

From that day, until the last of his dear and honored life, it was
my delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and
companion; and from those little notes which my mother hath made here
and there in the volume in which my father describes his adventures
in Europe, I can well understand the extreme devotion with which she
regarded him--a devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her,
I think, from loving any other person except with an inferior regard;
her whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and
worship. I know that, before her, my dear father did not show the love
which he had for his daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments,
this dear and tender parent owned to me her repentance that she had
not loved me enough: her jealousy even that my father should give his
affection to any but herself: and in the most fond and beautiful words
of affection and admonition, she bade me never to leave him, and to
supply the place which she was quitting. With a clear conscience, and a
heart inexpressibly thankful, I think I can say that I fulfilled those
dying commands, and that unti