Mrs. Adams was to have only four months of this disturbed existence. The climate of Washington, the general discomfort added to anxiety and distress of mind, made her ill, and she left the city before Mr. Adams did. During her short stay, however, she won the admiration of all by the dignity, grace and judgment with which she filled a most difficult position. She _never lost her cheerfulness_. "I am a mortal enemy," she said, "to anything but a cheerful countenance and a merry heart, which Solomon tells us, does good like a medicine." So in those dark days, when the tide of abuse and calumny raged around her beloved husband, she was more than ever the lamp that lighted and the fire that warmed him. Whatever was said of him--and one fancies that "hyena" and "crocodile" were mild epithets compared with those showered on the brave old statesman,--no one had anything but praise for Mrs. Adams. On January 1st, 1801, was held the first New Year's reception at the White House. She received the guests with her own calm grace and dignity. No one would have guessed that the house was half finished, the principal stairs still lacking, her china stolen and her husband defeated; she was mistress, not only of the White House, but of the situation. The closing days of the winter must have been painful to both Mr. and Mrs. Adams. They longed for the end, for the permanent return to "calm, happy Braintree," and before March came, Mrs. Adams was already there, ready to receive her dearest friend. One of Mr. Adams' last acts was the appointment of John Marshall as chief-justice of the supreme court; for this alone, he would deserve the lasting gratitude of the American people. He could not meet Jefferson, whom he had once loved, with whom he had toiled, suffered, triumphed, by whom he was now defeated. On March 3rd, 1801, he labored far into the night, signing commissions, arranging papers in his own methodical way, closing, as it were, his accounts with a nation which he could not but think ungrateful. Early on the morning of the 4th, while the city was still wrapped in slumber, he entered his carriage and left Washington forever. CHAPTER XII AFTERNOON AND EVENING IT was not in the little "hut" of former days that Portia awaited her dearest friend. A statelier dwelling was theirs henceforth, the house built by Leonard Vassall, a West India planter. It stood, and still stands, in its ample grounds, under its branching elms. The original building has received many additions, but it is the same house to which John Adams came on that spring day of 1801; the home of his later life, and of three generations of his descendants.