"Let us repair to the Old Lady's room, which is precisely in the style of our good old Aunt's--that is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of work--On one side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting--on the other, a little colored pet learning to sew, an old decent woman, with her table and shears, cutting out the negroes' winter clothes, while the good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself and pointing out to me several pair of nice colored stockings and gloves she had just finished, and presenting me with a pair half done, which she begs I will finish and wear for her. Her netting too is a great source of amusement and is so neatly done that all the family are proud of trimming their dresses with it."
This domestic life was dear to the heart of our Farmer's wife, yet the home-coming did not fail to awaken some melancholy memories. To Mrs. George Fairfax in England she wrote, or rather her husband wrote for her: "The changes which have taken place in this country since you left it (and it is pretty much the case in all other parts of this State) are, in one word, total. In Alexandria, I do not believe there lives at this day a single family with whom you had the smallest acquaintance. In our neighborhood Colo. Mason, Colo. McCarty and wife, Mr. Chickester, Mr. Lund Washington and all the Wageners, have left the stage of human life; and our visitors on the Maryland side are gone and going likewise."
How many people have had like thoughts! One of the many sad things about being the "last leaf upon the tree" is having to watch the other leaves shrivel and drop off and to be left at last in utter loneliness.
Like her husband, Mrs. Washington was an early riser, and it was a habit she seems to have kept up until the end. She rose with the sun and after breakfast invariably retired to her room for an hour of prayer and reading the Scriptures. Her devotions over she proceeded with the ordinary duties of the day.
She seems to have been somewhat fond of ceremony and to have had a considerable sense of personal dignity. A daughter of Augustine Washington, who when twelve years of age spent several weeks at Mount Vernon, related when an old woman that every morning precisely at eleven o'clock the mistress of the mansion expected her company to assemble in the drawing-room, where she greeted them with much formality and kept them an hour on their good behavior. When the clock struck twelve she would rise and ascend to her chamber, returning thence precisely at one, followed by a black servant carrying an immense bowl of punch, from which the guests were expected to partake before dinner. Some of the younger girls became curious to discover why her "Ladyship" retired so invariably to her room, so they slipped out from where she was entertaining their mothers, crept upstairs and hid under her bed. Presently Lady Washington entered and took a seat before a large table. A man-servant then brought a large empty bowl, also lemons, sugar, spices and rum, with which she proceeded to prepare the punch. The young people under the bed thereupon fell to giggling until finally she became aware of their presence. Much offended, or at least pretending to be, she ordered them from the room. They retired with such precipitancy that one of them fell upon the stairway and broke her arm.
Another story is to the effect that one morning Nelly Custis, Miss Dandridge and some other girls who were visiting Nelly came down to breakfast dressed dishabille and with their hair done up in curl papers. Mrs. Washington did not rebuke them and the meal proceeded normally until the announcement was made that some French officers of rank and young Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who was interested in Miss Custis, had driven up outside, whereupon the foolish virgins sprang up to leave the room in order to make more conventional toilets. But Mrs. Washington forbade their doing so, declaring that what was good enough for General Washington was good enough for any guest of his.
She spoiled George Washington Custis as she had his father, but was more severe with Eleanor or Nelly. Washington bought the girl a fine imported harpsichord, which cost a thousand dollars and which is still to be seen at Mount Vernon, and the grandmother made Nelly practise upon it four or five hours a day. "The poor girl," relates her brother, "would play and cry, and cry and play, for long hours, under the immediate eye of her grandmother." For no shirking was allowed.
The truth would seem to be that Lady Washington was more severe with the young--always excepting Jacky and George--than was her husband. He would often watch their games with evident enjoyment and would encourage them to continue their amusements and not to regard him. He was the confidant of their hopes and fears and even amid tremendous cares of state found time to give advice about their love affairs. For he was a very human man, after all, by no means the marble statue sculptured by some historians.
Yet no doubt Mrs. Washington's severity proceeded from a sense of duty and the fitness of things rather than from any harshness of heart. The little old lady who wrote: "Kiss Marie. I send her two handkerchiefs to wipe her nose," could not have been so very terrible!