could write her like this. Even his reproaches are gentle, and filled with great tenderness. And so it went on, through the Revolution and through the stormy days in which the Republic was born. There were long and inevitable separations, yet a part of the time she was with him, doing her duty as a soldier’s wife, and sternly refusing to wear garments which were not woven in American looms. During the many years they lived at Mount Vernon, they attended divine service at Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, one of the quaint little landmarks [Pg 42]of the town which is still standing. For a number of years he was a vestryman of the church, and the pew occupied by him is visited yearly by thousands of tourists while sight-seeing in the national Capitol. Indeed all the churches, so far as known, in which he once worshipped, have preserved his pew intact, while there are hundreds of tablets, statues, and monuments throughout the country. [Pg 42] In the magnificent monument at Washington, rising to a height of more than 555 feet, the various States of the Union have placed stone replicas of their State seals, and these, with other symbolic devices, constitute the inscriptions upon one hundred and seventy-nine of these memorial stones. Not only this, but Europe and Asia, China and Japan have honoured themselves by erecting memorials to the great American. When at last his long years of service for his country were ended, he and his beloved wife returned again to their beautiful home at Mount Vernon, to wait [Pg 43]for the night together. The whole world knows how the end came, with her loving ministrations to the very last of the three restful years which they at this time spent together at the old home, and how he looked Death bravely in the face, as became a soldier and a Christian. [Pg 43] [Pg 44] [Pg 44] The Old and the New Grandmother sat at her spinning wheel In the dust of the long ago, And listened, with scarlet dyeing her cheeks, For the step she had learned to know. A courtly lover, was he who came, With frill and ruffle and curl— They dressed so queerly in the days When grandmother was a girl! “Knickerbockers” they called them then, When they spoke of the things at all— Grandfather wore them, buckled and trim, When he sallied forth to call. Grandmother’s eyes were youthful
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