"Well, methinks I hear Betsy and Lucy say, 'What is cousin's dress?' White, my dear girls, like your aunt's, only differently trimmed and ornamented, her train being wholly of white crape and trimmed with white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves white crape, drawn over the silk with a row of lace around the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle, a little flower stuck between; a kind of hat cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers; a wreath of flowers upon the hair. Thus equipped we go in our own carriage, and Mr. Adams and Colonel Smith in his. But I must quit the pen in order for the ceremony which begins at 2 o'clock." Mrs. Adams was not one whit "flustered" or nervous on this occasion--unique from the circumstances attending it. The embarrassment was all on the part of Royalty. Very sustaining must be the consciousness of belonging to the victorious party! CHAPTER XI THE FIRST WINTER AT MOUNT VERNON Washington Irving speaks of the first winter at Mount Vernon as being of such intense cold that "General Washington could not travel through the snows even as far as Fredericksburg to visit his aged mother." General Dabney H. Maury, in his "Recollections of a Virginian," says: "After Washington's military career ended he used to go frequently to Fredericksburg to visit his venerable mother, and his arrival was the occasion of great conviviality and rejoicing. Dinner parties and card parties were then in order, and we find in that wonderful record of his daily receipts and expenditures that on one of these occasions he won thirty guineas at Lop-loo! Probably it was after this night that he threw the historic dollar across the river, the only instance of extravagance ever charged against him." A dinner-party was usually given to him on his arrival at the old "Indian Queen" tavern. On these visits Washington laid aside his state, and--near his boyhood's home--was a boy again. Judge Brooke, for many years chief justice of Virginia, who had served as an officer in the legion of "Light-horse Harry," used to tell of having frequently met Washington on his visits to Fredericksburg after the Revolutionary War, and how "hilarious" the general was on those occasions with "Jack Willis and other friends of his young days." Judge Brooke remembered one dinner given to Washington at the "Indian Queen" tavern at which he was present. "A British officer sang a comic song. Washington laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and called upon the singer to repeat it."