Subsequent events proved this marriage to be one of the very happiest that was ever formed. A romantic person would say that it was made in Heaven, and certainly it had the requisites of a heavenly union. Nothing could exceed the admiration, and love, and even deference of General Jackson for his wife. Her wish to him was law. It was a blessed ordering of Providence that this kind, good heart should find at last, after so many troubles, a tender and true friend and protector, understanding her perfectly, and loving her entirely. Mrs. Jackson was a noble woman, and abundantly blessed with superior sense. She was a good manager, a kind mistress, always directing the servants, and taking care of the estate in her husband’s frequent absences, and withal a generous and hospitable neighbor. She had a great many nieces and nephews, some of whom were nearly all the time staying with her. She was very lively in her manners, well knowing how to tell stories, and amuse the young people of the neighborhood, who were much attached to her, all calling her affectionately Aunt Rachel, as her nieces and nephews did. About the year 1804, General Jackson fixed his residence upon a superb estate of a thousand acres, twelve miles from Nashville, which he named the Hermitage. They lived at first in an ordinary frame building, sufficiently comfortable, but rather small. No lack of space in the house, however, could contract the liberal and hospitable spirit of the master and mistress of the Hermitage. When the Marquis de Lafayette visited Nashville on his return to America, there was an entertainment given in his honor at the Hermitage, to which many ladies and gentlemen were invited. At this banquet, and during his stay in Nashville, General Lafayette was particularly respectful and attentive to Mrs. Jackson; and after his return to France, he never failed, in writing to General Jackson, to send her his compliments. But the General was the “prince of hospitality,” as one of his neighbors said, “not because he entertained a great many people, but because the poor belated pedlar was as welcome as the President of the United States, and made so much at his ease that he felt as though he had got home.” One who often visited General Jackson’s house wrote that “it was the resort of friends and acquaintances, and of all strangers visiting the State; and the more agreeable to all from the perfect conformity of Mrs. Jackson’s character to his own. She had the General’s own warm heart, frank manners, and hospitable temper, and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. She was always doing kind things in the kindest manner. No bashful youth or plain old man, whose modesty set them down at the lower end of the table, could escape her cordial attention, any more than the titled gentlemen at her right and left.”