The latest news of the literary world, as
well as the social, drifted to the doors of
Montpellier; but Mrs. Madison's life was too
busy for much reading, even had her taste
inclined in that direction, which it did not.
She writes occasionally to a friend begging
for some new novel, and complains of Cooper
(fancy it!) as too melodramatic, and dealing
in the horrible beyond the endurance of her
nerves. On one occasion she contemplates a
plunge into so serious a work as the Romance
of History; but there is no record of her
finishing it, and she returns The Oxonians,
finding her mind too occupied with family
anxieties to enjoy reading.

In the main, despite all these anxieties,
Dolly Madison's life at Montpellier during
the nineteen years between her leaving Wash-
ington in 1817 and her husband's death in
1836, were full of sunshine, full of occupation,
and overshadowed by fewer clouds of trouble
and sorrow than darken the lot of most
mortals.

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