ambulator, during eight or nine
years of the war."

Another pleasant glimpse during these stormy years is the couple, during a
brief stay in Philadelphia, being entertained almost to death, described
as follows by Franklin's daughter in a letter to her father: "I have
lately been several times abroad with the General and Mrs. Washington. He
always inquires after you in the most affectionate manner, and speaks of
you highly. We danced at Mrs. Powell's your birthday, or night I should
say, in company together, and he told me it was the anniversary of his
marriage; it was just twenty years that night" Again there was junketing
in Philadelphia after the surrender at Yorktown, and one bit of this is
shadowed in a line from Washington to Robert Morris, telling the latter
that "Mrs. Washington, myself and family, will have the honor of dining
with you in the way proposed, to-morrow, being Christmas day."

With the retirement to Mount Vernon at the close of the war, little more
companionship was obtained, for, as already stated, Washington could only
describe his home henceforth as a "well resorted tavern," and two years
after his return he entered in his diary, "Dined with only Mrs. Washington
which I believe is the first instance of it since my retirement from
public life."

Even this was only a furlough, for in six years they were both in public
life again. Mrs. Washington was inclined to sulk over the necessary
restraints of official life, writing to a friend, "Mrs. Sins will give you
a better account of the fashions than I can--I live a very dull life hear
and know nothing that passes in the town--I never goe to any public
place--indeed I think I am more like a State prisoner than anything else;
there is certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from--and as I
cannot doe as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal."

[Illustration: MRS. DANIEL PARKE CUSTIS, LATER MRS. WASHINGTON]

None the less she did her duties well, and in these "Lady Washington" was
more at home, for, according to Thacher, she combined "in an uncommon
degree, great dignity of manner with most pleasing affability," though
possessing "no striking marks of beauty," and there is no doubt that she
lightened Washington's shoulders of social demands materially. At the
receptions of Mrs. Washington, which were held every Friday evening, so a
contemporary states, "the President did not consider himself as visited.
On these occasions