The marriage ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr. Maury of the Episcopal Church, and two people were rarely ever united in marriage whose future seemed to promise a happier life. I have elsewhere noticed the noble qualities both of head and heart which were possessed by Martha Jefferson. It was the growth and development of these which years afterwards made John Randolph, of Roanoke--though he had quarrelled with her father--pronounce her the "noblest woman in Virginia."[40] Thomas Mann Randolph was intellectually not less highly gifted. He was a constant student, and for his genius and acquirements ranked among the first students at the University of Edinburgh. In that city he received the same attentions and held the same position in society which his rank, his wealth, and his brilliant attainments commanded for him at home. The bravest of the brave, chivalric in his devotion to his friends and in his admiration and reverence for the gentler sex; tall and graceful in person, renowned in his day as an athlete and for his splendid horsemanship, with a head and face of unusual intellectual beauty, bearing a distinguished name, and possessing an ample fortune, any woman might have been deemed happy who was led by him to the hymeneal altar. [40] It was on the occasion of a dinner-party, when some one proposing to drink the health of Mrs. Randolph, John Randolph rose and said, "Yes, gentlemen, let us drink the health of the noblest woman in Virginia." A few days after his daughter's marriage, Mr. Jefferson set out for New York, going by the way of Richmond. At Alexandria the Mayor and citizens gave him a public reception. He had intended travelling in his own carriage, which met him at that point, but a heavy fall of snow taking place, he sent it around by water, and took a seat in the stage, having his horses led. In consequence of the bad condition of the roads, his journey was a tedious one, it taking a fortnight for him to travel from Richmond to New York. He occasionally left the stage floundering in the mud, and, mounting one of his led horses, accomplished parts of his journey on horseback. On the 17th of March he arrived in Philadelphia, and hearing of the illness of his aged friend, Dr. Franklin, went at once to visit him, and in his Memoir speaks thus of his interview with him: