Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/157

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GAMING FASHIONABLE.
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with President John Adams, and at the end of this administration he was elected to fill the first position in the gift of the nation. On the fourth of March, 1801, he was inaugurated President of the United States. His daughter Martha was living at her husband's country home near Monticello, the mother of several children, and Marie, who had previously married Mr. Eppes, of Eppington, was happily situated at Monticello, awaiting her father's promised visit in early summer.

Sir Augustus Foster, who was Secretary of Legation at Washington to the British Minister, Mr. Merry, has given some rather entertaining of accounts of the state of society there in the time of Jefferson. "In going to assemblies, one had to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the risk of an overturn, or of being what is termed stalled, or stuck in the mud, when one can neither go backward nor forward, and either loses one's shoes or one's patience. Cards were a great resource of an evening, and gaming was all the fashion, for the men who frequented society were chiefly from Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of brag, the most gambling of all games. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they were looed, pronounced the word in a very mincing manner.

"The New Englanders, generally speaking, were very religious, but though there were many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians. But in spite of its inconveniences