“My mother was born in September, 1772, and had therefore entered her 29th year when her father was elected President. She was then the mother of five children, having married at the early age of seventeen. Thus surrounded by a family of young children, she could not pass much of her time in Washington; she did, however, spend two winters there, the first in 1802–3, the second in 1805–6. Her health was very bad on the first of these two occasions of her visiting her father. Having an abscess on her lungs, she was advised by her physician to go to pass the winter in Bermuda, and for this purpose left her home in Albemarle, Virginia, to go as far as Washington in her travelling carriage—the only mode at that day of making the journey of four days’ duration. During this journey the abscess broke, and she felt so much relieved that her going to Bermuda was no longer considered necessary, and she passed that winter with her father. I believe my father was in Congress at that time. My mother’s only sister, Marie Jefferson, then Mrs. John W. Eppes, was also a member of her father’s family that winter, her husband being in Congress. There was a difference of six years in the ages of the sisters; my mother, who was the oldest, had accompanied her father to France, where she was educated under his eyes. My aunt had afterward followed them to Paris under the wing of Mrs. John Adams, in whose correspondence mention is made of her. The three became thus reunited only two years before their return home, after which she (my aunt) was placed at school in Philadelphia. She grew up possessed of rare beauty and loveliness of person as well as disposition; but her health was delicate, and her natural modesty and timidity was so great as to make her averse to society. Undervaluing her own personal advantages, she regarded with the warmest admiration, as well as sisterly affection, her sister’s more positive character and brilliant intellectual endowments. My mother was not a beauty; her features were less regular than her sister’s, her face owing its charms more to its expressiveness, beaming as it ever was with kindness, good humor, gayety and wit. She was tall and very graceful, notwithstanding a certain degree of embonpoint. Her complexion naturally fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very long and very abundant. I have always heard that her manners were uncommonly attractive from their vivacity, amiability, and high breeding, and her conversation was charming. These two sisters were the ladies of the White House in 1802–3. My mother was very sociable and enjoyed society. I remember hearing her mention a circumstance which seemed to illustrate the natural difference of their characters. She said one day, laughingly, ‘Marie, if I had your beauty, I should not feel so indifferent as you do about it.’ My aunt looked vexed and pained, and observed, ‘Compliments to a pretty face were indications that no intellectual attractions existed in its possessor.’