“I found these old slippers in your wardrobe. A mouse had started to build a nest in one but I brushed it out and aired it. Thank goodness, he hadn’t gnawed any holes in it.” She jumped up. “Ah, my dear sir,” he looked up gratefully at Thomas Randolph, who was followed by a servant with a steaming mug on a server, “you save my life!” “Just what you need to heat up your blood, sir.” said Randolph. “Another log on the fire, Cassius, and tend the fires in Mr. Jefferson’s library and bedroom.” Jefferson sipped the warm punch slowly while his granddaughters busied themselves dressing his feet in warm hose and old slippers. “Your breeches are damp, Grandpa,” one said. “But we can’t do anything about that.” “I am marvelously served already.” He pulled them close to kiss their flushed young faces. “Burwell will find me some dry clothes presently as soon as I am warmed and rested. I see that our Paris lamp hasn’t tarnished very much, Patsy.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Remember what a time we had packing that thing? I remember you stuffed the globes full of hose and shirts and winced every time the box was moved.” “I expected it to arrive here a mass of scraps and splinters,” she said, “and after you had paid such an outrageous price for it, too.” “It was that painting you made the worst fuss about.” Jefferson emptied the bowl, handed it to the waiting servant, and got to his feet. “Ah, my old knees are stiff! But they still seem willing to support me. Now, I want to see everything. Yes”—he halted at the door of the high-ceiled drawing room—“there’s poor old John the Baptist whom you hated, Patsy.” He went nearer to study the painting over the mantel. “It was Polly who loathed it most,” Martha said. “Not poor old John, all head and no body, but Salome lugging him on that charger wearing modern clothes and a very proper turban at that. I’d still like to throw that picture away, Papa. It used to give little Francis Eppes the horrors. Every time he had to pass through this room he’d have nightmares.” “Nice polish on this floor, Patsy,” commended Jefferson, artfully turning her mind away from criticism of one of his favorite paintings by complimenting the gleam of the parquet floor. It was the first such oak floor laid in America and he was very proud of the way it reflected the glitter of the gilt chairs and sofas he had brought from Paris. They had cost fabulous amounts too, more than he could afford, but in his philosophy the things a man wanted and admired, that made life richer, were worth whatever they cost. A brief nagging jerk of realism struck him—that now he would have to count the cost of things. Let that wait, let it wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow he would look over his lands, his farms; he would see how Randolph’s management had benefited them, and study what more must be done to the still unfinished house. Martha, catching his roving look, interrupted it with a protest.