Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/198

178 and render her husband's administration brilliant and successful. Her field was the parlor; and with the view of reigning supreme there, she bent the energies of her mind to the one idea of accomplishment. In her thirty-seventh year she entered the White House. Still youthful in appearance,(denied the cares of maternity, which destroy the bloom of beauty on the delicate faces of American women, she assumed her agreeable position with no encumbrances, no crosses, in perfect health, the possessor of great beauty of feature and form, and eminently happy in the sincere regard of her husband. Contentment crowned her lot with happiness, and the first four years of her life there must have been one continued pleasure.

With all her appreciation of admiration, she was not extravagant; her house, during the time of Mr. Jefferson's term, was very plainly furnished, and in no way elegant. Like most Virginians, she delighted in company, and her home was the most hospitable abode in Washington. Her table was her pride; and the multiplicity of dishes, and their size, was a subject of ridicule to a foreign minister, who observed "that it was more like a harvest-home supper, than the entertainment of a Secretary of State." She heard of this and similar remarks, and only observed with a smile, "that she thought abundance was preferable to elegance; that I circumstances formed customs, and customs formed I taste; and as the profusion so repugnant to foreign customs arose from the happy circumstance of the super-