departure for Boston. The rest of the family passed that winter in my brother's house, then the ensuing summer at Monticello, a purchaser for which could not be found until two years or more after. My mother remained in Cambridge the second winter, as a boarder, with her two children, in the family of Mr. Stearns, law-professor of Harvard College, to whose excellent family she became much attached.
"My sister Cornelia went to join her in Cambridge, and the two were alternately in Boston and Cambridge, the one with Mrs. Coolidge, and the other with the children.
"In the spring of 1828, my mother returned to Monticello, accompanied by Cornelia and Septimia, leaving my brother at a boarding school in the country near Cambridge. This being their first separation, it was felt most acutely on both sides, for he, just ten years old, was an unusually sensitive and warm hearted boy, and as the 'youngling of of her flock,' was the darling of her heart. He was to remain behind among strangers, whilst his mother, the object of his passionate fondness and devoted attachment, was to return without him to that dear old home he so well remembered and loved. My mother, on her return to Monticello after an absence of eighteen months, found my father very ill. He had been a part of the previous winter in Georgia, engaged as commissioner on the part of the United States in establishing a boundary line between that State and riorida. His letters spoke of his enjoying the climate,
