Mount Vernon
when victory hung in the balance; when defeat meant that Thomas Jefferson
and George Washington would be the first victims of a vengeful foe. She
saw her husband War-Governor of Virginia in its most perilous hour; she
lived to know that Washington had won; that Cornwallis was his "guest,"
and that no man, save Washington alone, was more honored in proud Virginia
than her beloved lord and husband. She saw a messenger on horseback
approach bearing a packet from the Congress at Philadelphia to the effect
that "His Excellency, the Honorable Thomas Jefferson," had been appointed
as one of an embassy to France in the interests of the United States, with
Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as colleagues, and, knowing her
husband's love for Franklin, and his respect for France, she leaned over
his chair and with misty eyes saw him write his simple "No," and knew that
the only reason he declined was because he would not leave his wife at a
time when she might most need his tenderness and sympathy.

And then they retired to beloved Monticello to enjoy the rest that comes
only after work well done--to spend the long vacation of their lives in
simple homekeeping work and studious leisure, her husband yet in manhood's
prime, scarce thirty-seven, as men count time, and rich, passing rich, in
goods and lands.

And then she died.

And Thomas Jefferson, the strong, the self-poised, the self-reliant, fell
in a helpless swoon, and was laid on a pallet and carried out, as though
he, too, were dead. For three weeks his dazed senses prayed for death. He
could endure the presence of no one save his eldest daughter, a slim,
slender girl of scarce ten years, grown a woman in a day. By her loving
touch and tenderness he was lured back from death and reason's night into
the world of life and light. With tottering steps, led by the child who
had to think for both, he was taken out on the veranda of beautiful
Monticello. He looked out on stretching miles of dark-blue hills and
waving woods and winding river. He gazed, and as he looked it came slowly
to him that the earth was still as when he last saw it, and realized that
this would be so even if he were gone. Then, turning to the child, who
stood by, stroking his locks, it came to him that even in grief there may
be selfishness, and for the first time he responded to the tender caress,
saying, "Yes, we will live, daughter--live in memory of her!"

* * * *