He looked up at her with a direct, searching look. “What are you thinking, Patsy? Though I think I can read it in your face. You think it would have made her happy. Very well. Order the chaise around—but, as for me, I shall ride Eagle. I’ll go to church with you.” “How people will stare!” whispered Ellen, in their room as the girls dressed for supper. “Nobody will even look at the minister.” “Grandfather won’t even know they are staring,” declared Cornelia. “He’s been stared at with bands playing and soldiers standing at attention.” “Grandfather,” remarked Ann, “is as aloof and untouchable as one of those mountains out there.” “But people love him. Look how they swarmed over this place all summer.” “Have you noticed how low and gently he speaks lately? Even to the servants, some of the stupidest ones, he never raises his voice. And they scramble like anything to do what he wants done.” “It’s because he knows he is great and famous. Like the mountains. They know they are going to be there forever and nothing can ever destroy them. Greatness, real greatness, is always simple,” insisted Ann. There was the fragrance of evergreens and of many candles burning in the church and a feebly burning wood fire strove to take a bit of the chill off the place. Martha wrapped her heavy cloak around her knees, then lifted a fold of it and spread it over her father’s thin legs as he sat, stiffly upright beside her on the hard pew. There was a silence as the minister came in, his vestment and stole very white in the dim light. Then in the gallery high at the back came a humming, and the slaves seated there began singing, low at first, then higher and clearer, rich deep harmony filling the raftered spaces above where candle smoke softly drifted. _Who got weary? Christmas day! Christmas day! Oh, no, Lawd! Ain’t nobody weary. Nobody weary Christmas day!_ Thomas Jefferson gripped his daughter’s hand hard. “She sang that,” he whispered. “She liked that song.” The age-old words rang out: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.” Martha Randolph saw her father’s lips moving. Was he praying? No, his eyes were not cast down and there was no humility in the set of his shoulders. He was looking straight ahead and upward, into the high lift of the ceiling above the chancel where a round window framed an indigo-dark circle of the sky. She caught the faint whisper from his lips. “I am here,” he was saying to some vision unseen, “I am here, beloved.” Transcriber’s Notes —Silently corrected a few typos. —Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication. —In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.