Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/180

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158
MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.

the older and younger members of the family. His visits were enjoyed by us all, from my grandfather and mother down to the youngest child of the house, only two years old. In allusion to her name of Septimia, he said to my mother, 'Your daughters, Mrs. Randolph, are like the Pleiades; they are called seven, but six only are seen.' The second daughter died an infant. "My mother survived her father upward of ten years, and her husband about eight years; during that period losing a grown son, James Madison Randolph, born in the President's House.

"In the autumn after my grandfather's death, she went to Boston, and passed the winter in the house of her son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of that city, having with her the two youngest children, Septimia and George Wythe, who went to day-schools during that winter. Septimia was the only one of her daughters who ever went to school at all; my other sisters and myself having our education conducted by our mother; she being our only teacher, assisted somewhat by her father. The following summer she accompanied my sister, Mrs. Coolidge, to Cambridge, where the two children again attended day-schools. My eldest brother, Mr, Jefferson Randolph, was his grandfather's executor; he had been in all business affairs the staff of his declining years, and afterward became a father to his younger brothers. The sale of furniture, pictures, and other movables at Monticello, took place the winter following my grandfather's death, after my mother's