like a negro, or rather like a dog. And, as to any considerable preferment in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have interest, and he has none. And if he should get to be master of a Virginia ship (which is very difficult to do), a planter that has three or four hundred acres of land, and three or four slaves, if he be industrious, may live more comfortably, and leave his family in better bread, than such a master of a ship can."

It seems possible from this letter that the plan was to put George into the navy that he might come to command a merchant ship; but however that may be, the plan was given up, and the boy went back to school for another year. During that time he applied himself especially to the study of surveying. In a country of great estates, and with a new, almost unexplored territory coming into the hands of planters, surveying was a very important occupation. George Washington, with his love of exactness and regularity, his orderly ways and his liking for outdoor life, was greatly attracted by the art. Five or six years must elapse before he could come into possession of the property which his father had left him; his mother was living on it and managing it. Meanwhile, the work of surveying land would give him plenty of occupation, and bring him in money; so he studied geometry and trigonometry; he made calculations, and he surveyed all the fields about the school-house, plotting them and setting down everything with great exactness.

I wonder if his sudden diligence in study and outdoor work was due at all to an affair which happened about this time. He was a tall, largelimbed, shy boy of fifteen when he fell in love with a girl whom he seems to have met when living with his brother Augustine. He calls her, in one of his letters afterward, a "lowland beauty," and tradition makes her to have been a Miss Grimes, who later married, and was the mother of one of the young soldiers who served under Washington in the War for Independence. Whatever may have been the exact reason that his love affair did not prosper-whether he was too shy to make his mind known, or so silent as not to show himself to advantage, or so discreet with grave demeanor as to hold himself too long in reserve, it is impossible now to say; but I suspect that one effect was to make him work the harder. Sensible people do not expect boys of fifteen to be playing the lover; and George Washington was old for his years, and not likely to appear in the rôle of a spooney.

CHAPTER V.

MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIR.

ALTHOUGH, after his father's death, George Washington went to live with his brother Augustine for the sake of going to Mr. Williams's school, he was especially under the care of his eldest brother. Lawrence Washington, like other oldest sons of Virginia planters, was sent to England to be educated. After his return to America, there was war between England and Spain, and Admiral Vernon of the English navy captured one of the Spanish towns in the West Indies. The people in the American colonies looked upon the West Indies somewhat differently from the way in which we regard them at present. Not only were the islands on the map of America, but like the colonies, some of them were a part of the British possessions. A brisk trade was kept up between them and the mainland; and indeed, the Bermudas were once within the bounds of Virginia.

So, when Admiral Vernon needed reënforcements, he very naturally looked to the colonies close at hand. A regiment was to be raised and sent out to Jamaica as part of the British forces.

Lawrence Washington, who was a spirited young fellow, obtained a commission as captain in a company of this regiment, and went to the West Indies, where he fought bravely in the engagements which followed. When the war was over he returned to Virginia, so in love with his new profession that he determined to go to England, with the regiment to which his company was attached, and to continue as a soldier in His Majesty's service.

Just then there happened two events which changed his plans and perhaps prevented him from some day fighting against an army commanded by his younger brother. He fell in love with Anne Tairfax, and before they were married his father died. This left his mother alone with the care of a young family, and made him also at once the owner of a larger estate. His father, as I have said, bequeathed to him Hunting Creek, and there, after his marriage, he went to live, as a planter, like his father before him. For the time, at any rate, he laid aside his sword, but he kept up his friendship with officers of the army and the navy; and out of admiration for the admiral under whom he had served, he changed the name of his estate from Hunting Creek to Mount Vernon.

The house which Lawrence Washington built was after the pattern of many Virginian houses of the day, two stories in height, with a porch running along the front, but with its two chimneys,

one at each end, built inside instead of outside. Possibly this was a notion which Lawrence Washington brought with him from England; perhaps he did it to please his English bride. The site which he chose was a pleasant one, upon a swelling ridge, wooded in many places, and high above the Potomac, which swept in great curves above and below, almost as far as the eye could see. Beyond, on the other side, were the Maryland fields and woods.

A few miles below Mount Vernon was another plantation, named Belvoir, and it was here that William Fairfax lived, whose daughter Anne had married Lawrence Washington. Fairfax also had been an officer in the English army, and at one time had been governor of one of the Bahama Islands. Now he had settled in Virginia, where his family had large landed possessions.

He was a man of education and wealth, and he had been accustomed to plenty of society. He had no mind to bury himself in the backwoods of Virginia, and with his grown-up sons and daughters about him, he made his house the centre of gayety. It was more richly furnished than most of the houses of the Virginia planters. The floors were covered with carpets, a great luxury in those days; the rooms were lighted with wax candles; and he had costly wines in his cellars. Servants in livery moved about to wait on the guests, and Virginia gentlemen and ladies flocked to Belvoir.