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128 the Forest, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson set out for Monticello, and they were destined to meet some not exactly amusing adventures by the way. A manuscript of their eldest daughter (Mrs. Randolph) furnished Mr. Randall by one of her granddaughters and published in his "Life of Jefferson"—says: "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. Having stopped for a short time at Blenheim (the residence of Colonel Carter) where an overseer only resided, they left it at sunset to pursue their way through a mountain track rather than a road, in which the snow lay from eighteen inches to two feet deep, having eight miles to go before reaching Monticello.

"They arrived late at night, the fires all out and the servants 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 them both relate." Part of a bottle of wine, found on a shelf behind some books, had to serve the new-married couple both for fire and supper. Tempers too sunny to be ruffled by many ten times as serious annoyances in after life, now found but sources of diversion in these ludicrous contre-temps, and the horrible dreariness was lit up with songs, and merriment and laughter.

Nine years afterward, Mrs. Jefferson, the mother of five children, was slowly declining, and her husband, refusing a mission to Europe on that account,