often played violin duets together; and another brother fiddler whom Jefferson was fond of playing with was John Randolph, son of Sir John and father of Edmund.

This particular John Randolph was a man of elegant person, manners, and accomplishments. Withal he was one of the best lawyers in Virginia, holding the post of Attorney-General under Lord Dunmore.

And Jefferson coveted Randolph's fiddle, yearned eagerly therefor, and entered into a queer contract by the terms of which he was to have the fiddle for three hundred dollars if he outlived Randolph.

As a consideration, moving to Randolph, he was to have books of Jefferson's to the value of four thousand dollars, in case he outlived Jefferson.

With great formality Jefferson had this agreement put into legal shape, attested by George Wythe, Patrick Henry, and five others; proved before the clerk of the court, and spread upon the records.

And now the beginning of a new era was at hand. Old things were passing away.

The easy-going times of peace, social repose, and political quiet would be seen no more.

Ties of family and of friendship were being broken. Old Lord Fairfax, the self-exiled hermit of the stone lodge in the wilderness of Virginia,

the British peer whose favor gave Washington his first lift to fortune, will grieve over his young friend, who seems to be going astray; will soon be saying to his faithful slave, "Put me to bed; it is time for me to die."

John Randolph feels that loyalty to his king requires him to follow Dunmore in his flight. His own son is cut off from him; for Edmund is a fireeating rebel who will seek service with Washington. But in the sadness and the haste of his going, Randolph does not forget Jefferson. Money, ready money, will do the exile more good now than the violin. Perhaps he will not feel like playing it again in the England to which he goes.

So Jefferson gets the fiddle now-gets it for less than sixty-five dollars, and his heart is made exceedingly glad.

As for Randolph, stanch friend, loyal subject, superb lawyer, splendid gentleman, he says good-by forever to his only son on the desolate seashore, and goes his way to London, penniless, ruined.

Upon a wretched pittance from the British treasury he lives in poverty at Brampton, a broken

man.

His daughter, Ariana, had been about to marry the English aristocrat, Captain Parker, afterward Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, whose signal to cease firing at Copenhagen Nelson refused to see.

This match is now broken off, and Ariana weds

an old sweetheart, James Wormely, at Dunmore's place in Scotland.

Broken-hearted, wandering from Brampton to Dunmore's in Scotland, where his kinsman, the earl, gives him a welcome which makes one soften to Dunmore, eating the bread of poverty and dependence, proud John Randolph did not live long; died in 1784, begging at the last that his body might be carried back to his beloved Virginia.

On the first ship that came across after the peace, the body was brought, and the exile rested at length in the college chapel at Williamsburg, beside his brother and his father.

Generous souls will not fail to admire the devotion of such a royalist!

Mr. Jefferson's establishment at Monticello was now very large. There were eighty-three slaves and thirty-four white people. Included in this latter number were the widow and children of Dabney Carr. Mr. Jefferson had no sooner buried his friend on the spot they had chosen, than he brought the bereaved family to Monticello, where his house became their home.

The old mother yet lived at Shadwell, and with her Jefferson's younger brother, Randolph.

Serenely happy is the master of Monticello in