A salon at Braintree

John has come home between diplomatic missions, and the house at Braintree is full of politics. Jefferson and Madison, in Massachusetts on public business, have been asked to dine, and Abigail presides over a table that is plainer than the talk.

The conversation ranges from the war to the new state constitutions, and Abigail does not let the men forget the argument she made four years earlier. She asks what the rights of women amount to if the laws still leave them dependent, and she presses Jefferson on the religious establishment he is trying to dismantle in Virginia. The men answer, mostly, that the times are unsettled; Abigail answers that they are exactly the times for the question. They eat clam chowder, codfish balls, and hasty pudding, with mince pie and raspberry shrub to finish.