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Rh gay young heart would have liked. Her wedding must have cost her many a pang in its absence of all gayety and brilliancy.

Dolly's years with her first husband were brief, though happy, and they ended tragically. Three years later John Todd died of yellow fever, that swept over Philadelphia, and Dolly Todd was left a young widow in poor circumstances, and with one child, Payne Todd, who was in after years to sadden and shadow her life. She went to live with her mother, then also a widow, in straitened means, who had taken some gentlemen to board. But Dolly's sunny nature would not let her brood over her grief. Now, for the first time, she was mistress of herself. There was no Quaker father or Quaker husband to restrain her in her life of frivolity. This period of her life was her real girlhood, and that training school for the personal charm and social grace wherein lay the secret of her future greatness. In about a year after the death of John Todd, Aaron Burr, who had been an inmate of Mrs. Payne's household, introduced the young widow to James Madison, who had already made a wide reputation. Mrs. Todd wrote to a friend that Mr. Burr was going to bring "that great little Madison" to call upon her. The "great little Madison" called; in the words of a biographer, "He came; he saw; she conquered." Shortly after this Mrs. Washington sent for Dolly, and questioned her about Madison's attentions, strongly advising the youthful widow to accept him as a husband. She did so at once, receiving the President's and Mrs. Washington's heartiest congratulations. Dolly's sister had married George Steptoe Washington, the President's nephew, so there was a connection in the two families, and the second marriage was solemnized at Harewood, the estate of her brother-in-law, on September 15, 1794. From Harewood they went to Montpelier, Madison's home, in Orange county, Virginia, traveling over a distance of a hundred miles by coach.