he appeared as a private gentleman, with neither hat
nor sword, conversing without restraint."

From other formal society Mrs. Washington also saved her husband, for a
visitor on New Year's tells of her setting "'the General' (by which title
she always designated her husband)" at liberty: "Mrs. Washington had stood
by his side as the visitors arrived and were presented, and when the clock
in the hall was heard striking nine, she advanced and with a complacent
smile said, 'The General always retires at nine, and I usually precede
him,' upon which all arose, made their parting salutations, and withdrew."
Nor was it only from the fatigues of formal entertaining that the wife
saved her husband, Washington writing in 1793, "We remain in Philadelphia
until the 10th instant. It was my wish to have continued there longer; but
as Mrs. Washington was unwilling to leave me surrounded by the malignant
fever which prevailed, I could not think of hazarding her, and the
Children any longer by _my_ continuance in the City, the house in which we
live being in a manner blockaded by the disorder, and was becoming every
day more and more fatal; I therefore came off with them."

Finally from these "scenes more busy, tho' not more happy, than the
tranquil enjoyment of rural life," they returned to Mount Vernon, hoping
that in the latter their "days will close." Not quite three years of this
life brought an end to their forty years of married life. On the night
that Washington's illness first became serious his secretary narrates that
"Between 2 and 3 o'clk on Saturday morning he [Washington] awoke Mrs.
Washington & told her he was very unwell, and had had an ague.
She ... would have got up to call a servant; but he would not permit her
lest she should take cold." As a consequence of this care for her, her
husband lay for nearly four hours in a chill in a cold bedroom before
receiving any attention, or before even a fire was lighted. When death
came, she said, "Tis well--All is now over--I have no more trials to pass
through--I shall soon follow him." In his will he left "to my dearly
beloved wife" the use of his whole property, and named her an executrix.

As a man's views of matrimony are more or less colored by his personal
experience, what Washington had to say on the institution is of interest.
As concerned himself he wrote to his nephew, "If Mrs. Washington should
survive me, there is a moral certainty of my dying without issue: and
sh