I never read of stern and fearless Andrew Jackson without recalling his devoted love for Rachel Robards. With the world he was thought to be domineering and harsh, and was often profane; but with her he was patient, gentle, and deferential. Having no children, they adopted her nephew when but a few days old. When Jackson conquered at New Orleans and young ladies strewed flowers along the path of the hero, to have the commendation of Rachel was more than that of all the world beside. When he was elected President she said, “Well, for Mr. Jackson’s sake I am glad; for my own part I never wished it.” Earnest in her religious convictions, he built a small brick church for her in the Hermitage grounds, that she might gather her neighbors and servants about her for worship. Mrs. Jackson died suddenly just after her husband’s election to the presidency. He could not believe that she was dead. When they brought a table to lay her body upon, “Spread four blankets upon it. If she does come to, she will lie so hard upon the table.” All night long he sat beside the form of his beloved Rachel, often feeling of her heart and pulse. In the morning he was wholly inconsolable, and when he found that she was really dead the body could scarcely be forced from his arms. He prepared a tomb for her like an open summer-house, and buried her under the white dome supported by marble pillars. While Jackson lived he wore her miniature constantly about his neck, and every night laid it open beside her prayer-book at his bedside. Her face was the last thing upon which his eyes rested before he slept, and the first thing upon which his eyes opened in the morning, through those eight years at the White House. He made his will bequeathing all his property to his adopted son, because, said he, “If she were alive she would wish him to have it all, and to me her wish is law.” Two days before he died he said, “Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not find my wife there.” He used to say, “All I have achieved—fame, power, everything—would I exchange, if she could be restored to me for a moment.” Washington Irving cherished forever the memory of Matilda Hoffman, who died at the age of seventeen. He could never hear her name mentioned afterward. After his death a package was found marked “Private Mems.” In a faded manuscript of his own writing were a lovely miniature of Matilda and a braid of fair hair. For years Irving kept her Bible and prayer-book under his pillow, and to the end of his life these were always carried with him on his journeys. In the faded manuscript one reads: “The ills that I have undergone in this life have been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away: beautiful and more beautiful, and most angelical to the last.