Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/139

Rh the guest was deeply enjoying this interview, an aged and stately female entered the apartment, and he was introduced to Mrs. Adams. A cap of exquisite lace surrounded features still exhibiting intellect and energy, though they did not wear the appearance of ever having been beautiful. Her dress was snowy white, and there was that immaculate neatness in her appearance which gives to age almost the sweetness of youth. With less warmth of manner and sociableness than Mr. Adams, she was sufficiently gracious, and her occasional remarks betrayed intellectual vigor and strong sense. The guest went away feeling that he never again should behold such living specimens of the 'great of old.'"

Mrs. Adams died of an attack of fever, the 28th of October, 1818, at the advanced age of seventy-four years. "To learning," says her grandson, " in the ordinary sense of that term, Mrs. Adams could make no claim. Her reading had been extensive in the lighter departments of literature, and she was well acquainted with the poets in her own language, but it went no further. It is the soul, shining through the words, that gives them their great attraction; the spirit ever equal to the occasion, whether a great or a small one; a spirit, inquisitive and earnest in the little details of life, as when she was in France and England; playful, when she describes daily duties, but rising to the call when the roar of cannon is in her ears—or when she reproves her husband for not knowing her better than to think her a coward and to fear telling her bad news."