Long years before, he had liked and admired Becca, gazed fondly at Sukey, and finally loved Belinda.  He did not tell her so, but he told John Page, and vowed that if he did not wed Belinda he would go through life solitary and alone.  In a few months Belinda married that detested being—­another.  Then it was he again swore to his friend Page he would be true to her memory, even though she had dissembled.  But now he saw that the widow Skelton had intellect, while Belinda had been but clever; the widow had soul, while Belinda had nothing but form.  Jefferson’s experience seems to settle that mooted question, “Can a man love two women at the same time?” Unlike Martha Custis, this Martha was won only after a protracted wooing, with many skirmishes and occasional misunderstandings and explanations, and sweet makings-up that were surely worth a quarrel.

Then they were married at “The Forest,” and rode away through the woods to Monticello.  Jefferson was twenty-seven, and although it may not be proper to question closely as to the age of the widow, yet the bride, we have reason to believe, was about the age of her husband.

It was a most happy mating—­all their quarreling had been done before marriage.  The fine intellect and high spirit of Jefferson found their mate.  She was his comrade and helpmeet as well as his wife.  He could read his favorite Ossian aloud to her, and when he tired she would read to him; and all his plans and ambitions and hopes were hers.  In laying out the grounds and beautifying that home on Monticello mountain, she took much more than a passive interest.  It was “Our Home,” and to make it a home in very sooth for her beloved husband was her highest ambition.  She knew the greatness of her mate, and all the dreams she had for his advancement were to come true.  With her, ideality was to become reality.  But she was to see it only in part.

Yet she had seen her husband re-elected to the Virginia Legislature; sent as a member to the Colonial Congress at Philadelphia, there to write the best known of all American literary productions; from their mountain home she had seen British troops march into Charlottesville, four miles away, and then, with household treasure, had fled, knowing that beautiful Monticello would be devastated by the enemy’s ruthless tread.  She had known Washington, and had visited his lonely wife there at Mount Vernon when victory hung in the balance; when defeat meant that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would be the first victims of a vengeful foe.  She saw her husband War-Governor of Virginia in its most perilous hour; she lived to know that Washington had won; that Cornwallis was his “guest,” and that no man, save Washington alone, was more honored in proud Virginia than her beloved lord and husband.  She saw a messenger on horseback approach bearing a packet from the Congress at Philadelphia to the effect that “His Excellency, the Honorable Thomas Jefferson,” had been appointed as one of an embassy to France in the interests of the United States, with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as colleagues, and, knowing her husband’s love for Franklin, and his respect for France, she leaned over his chair and with misty eyes saw him write his simple “No,” and knew that the only reason he declined was because he would not leave his wife at a time when she might most need his tenderness and sympathy.