Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/90

74 side of the hill unnerved her. She stood, the desolate survivor, like a lone sentinel upon a deserted battle-field, regarding in mute despair the fatal destruction of hope, and love, and joy. Through all time that Saturday night would be the closing scene of her life, even though her existence should be lengthened to a span of years.

Thirty months numbered themselves among eternity's uncounted years, and it became apparent to all that another death-scene was to be enacted, and the lonely occupant of the room above that other chamber of death, was reaching of the goal of its long felt desire. The gentle spirit was striving to free itself, and the glad light in the dim eye asserted the pleasure experienced in the knowledge of the coming change.

For many months Mrs. Washington had been growing more gloomy and silent than ever before, and the friends who grathered about her called her actions strange and incomprehensible. She stayed much alone, and declined every offer of company, but the last days of her life she seemed more cheerful and contented. When the end came on that bright, spring morning in 1801 she gave her blessing to all about her, and sank quietly to rest, in the seventy-first year of her age, and the third of her widowhood.