nd sophistications
of royalty, and well prepared to appreciate the republican simplicity
and frankness of which, she was herself a model. While Mr. Adams was
Vice-president and President, she never laid aside her singleness of
heart and that sincerity and unaffected dignity which had won for her
many friends before her elevation, and which, in spite of national
animosity, conquered the prejudices and gained the heart of the
aristocracy of Great Britain. But her crowning virtue was her Christian
humility, which is beautifully exemplified in a letter which she wrote
to Mr. Adams, on the 8th of February, 1797, "the day on which the votes
for President were counted, and Mr. Adams, as Vice-president, was
required by law to announce himself the President elect for the ensuing
term:"

"'The sun is dressed in brightest beams,
To give thy honors to the day.'

"And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have
this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God,
thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an
understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before
this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is
able to judge this thy so great a people?' were the words of a royal
sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the chief
magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown nor the robes of
royalty.

"My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent;
and my petitions to Heaven are, that 'the things which make for peace
may not be hidden from your eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or
ostentation, upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the
obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with
it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself,
with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to
this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your A.A."

From her husband's retirement from the Presidency in 1801, to the close
of her life in 1818, Mrs. Adams remained constantly at Quincy. Cheerful,
contented, and happy, she devoted her last years, in that rural
seclusion, to the reciprocities of friendship and love, to offices of
kindness and charity, and, in short, to all those duties which tend to
ripen the Christian for an exchange of worlds.

But it would be doing injustice to her character and le