Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/59

Rh Washington led there was similar in outward circumstances to her former position as Mrs. Custis, for she was again the wife of a wealthy, prosperous planter, the centre of the refined society of the county. The sameness of country life was interrupted by her frequent trips with her husband to Williamsburg, where he was for fifteen successive years a member of the Legislature.

Engaged in fascinating pleasures and congenial pursuits, it did not occur to Mrs. Washington how many summers of fragrantly blooming flowers and ripening fruits had sunk into the unreturning past; nor did she consider that the long term of years in which she had been so happy had meted to others measured drops of bitterness, turning all their harvest-times into chilling, dreary winter. There came to her a time when the pleasant home-life had to be abandoned, and for eight years the harmony of domestic peace was banished.

The following letter, the only one preserved of the many addressed to her, is full of interest, and is replete with that thoughtfulness which characterized Washington in his capacity as a husband. Mrs. Washington, shortly before her death, destroyed every testimonial of this kind, unwilling that any other should read these evidences of affection:

", 18th June, 1775.

": I am now set down to write to you on