Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/187

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MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS.
165

and out-buildings, the whole enclosed by a high brick wall. There the last three years of my mother's life were spent, although her death took place suddenly at Edgehill, my brother's residence in Virginia.

"The winter preceding had been marked by the death of my brother, James Madison Randolph, who had just completed his 27th year. He was buried at Monticello on a cold day in January. I remember the negroes assembled there, and made a fire to keep them warm while they waited for the procession which followed him to his early grave, who, they said, was the 'black man's friend,' and would have shared his last cent with one of them. At the time of our removal to that pleasant new home, my brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, having gone to China, was engaged in business in Canton; his family remaining in Boston. In the summer of 1834, and during the absence of her husband, my sister paid us a visit, passing the summer in Virginia at my brother's, and the following winter with us in Washington. On that occasion, my mother had all her daughters with her for the last time; and Lewis, yet unmarried, was still living with her. The season was remarkable for its severity, the thermometer falling so low as 16° below zero, on a gallery with a southern exposure of our house, and so late even as the 1st day of March, stood at zero—the snow a foot deep in the garden. Soon after the purchase of that house, Mr. Trist, whose health had been very delicate, was appointed by General Jackson to be United States Consul