Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/193

Rh of her rapidly unfolding beauty, or of the admiration it was exciting. Soon she was left a widow with an infant son, and made her home with her widowed mother.

The personal charms of the young widow, united as they were, with manners cordial, frank and gay, excited the admiration and awakened the kind feelings of all who came within their influence, and unaided by the extrinsic and accidental advantages of fortune or fashion, she became a general favorite, and the object not only of attention, but of serious and devoted attachment.

In October, 1794, Mrs, Todd was married to Mr. Madison, then one of the most talented members of Congress, a statesman of wealth and social position, and withal a great and good man. She had been a widow less than a year, and was at the time of her second marriage in the twenty-third year of her age. The ceremony was performed at "Harewbod," Jefferson county, Virginia, the residence of her younger sister, Lucy, the wife of George Steptoe Washington. From this time forward she lived at "Montpelier," the rural home of Mr. Madison, until he was called again to public life. It was at this time of her life that she developed the loveliest traits of her noble character. Placed in a position where she could command resources, the warmth and generosity of her nature was displayed, not in lavish personal expenditures, but in dispensing the bounties bestowed upon her to all who came as suppliants, and in giving to her widowed mother and orphaned sisters a home. The