papers for me? What made you send for

them?'

୧୯

Patty," said her mother, "do you think you could stay two or three days at Mount Vernon ?"

"To be sure I could," said Patty; "but why do you want to, mamma? I thought you were in a hurry to get to Richmond.”

"So I am," said Mrs. Gray; "but, Patty, I want one thing more than that. I want you to understand how great and good George Washington was. I think you will know him better if I take my books and papers with me, and talk to you about him on the very spot where he lived."

"It isn't much matter what I think," said Patty, stoutly.

"My dear Patty," said her mother, "the world is made of just such little girls and boys as you and Willie. I did not say anything the other day, when you said you didn't like Washington; but I heard it, and I thought how sorry I should be, if all little girls felt in the same way."

ee

They all do at school," said Patty, pulling out her red ribbon, and looking at it, so that she might not lose her temper.

"What makes them dislike him?" said Mrs. Gray.

"Because people make such a fuss about him! said Patty, talking very fast; "just think of the story they tell about his cutting that tree! If he was so very good, why didn't he go and tell his father just as soon as he'd done it? as he ought to- as I ought to?"— stammered Patty, mixing up her own wrong-doing with Washington's. 'Why, mamma, you'd be ashamed of me, if I didn't tell the truth when I was asked. And then, his mother: why, mamma, she wouldn't let him go to sea, and she didn't want him to go to the army. I don't think she was a bit better than other people. I like Lincoln ever so much better."

"Do you know why you like him better?” said Mrs. Gray.

er

Oh, there are ever so many reasons," said Patty.

"That may be," said mamma; “but, Patty, I think we love Lincoln because we pity him. No one ever thought of pitying Washington."

"I guess not!" said Patty, tossing up her head.

ee

"But we do pity Lincoln," said Mrs. Gray. Everything was against him from the beginning. He had no mother after he could recollect. His father was a very ignorant man. The woman he loved most tenderly, died before he could marry her. He loved another well enough to ask her to be his wife; and he was so sad, and moody, and restless, that she dared not marry him. Left all alone in a part of Illinois where there were very few noble men or delicate women, he lived, for many years, a despondent and unhappy life. He began to think about his country, not so much because he wanted to, as because he must have something to do; and so-through trouble so sharp and hot that it seemed as if he were walking over red-hot iron- - God led him to the White House. Then, for the first time, he saw men and women as they are, children of God, and felt that it was worth while to suffer and die. Just as we all knew that we loved him with our whole hearts, as we reverenced the strength, the patience, and the love with which he toiled, he did suffer and die for our sakes."

Little Patty's eyes were full of tears.

ee How

ee

Oh,

could I help loving him?" she said. mamma, he was worth a dozen Washingtons. Washington never loved anybody."

९९

'Washington did not show his love in the same way," said Mrs. Gray; "but if Lincoln had genius, Washington had power; if Lincoln was tender, Washington was firm; if Lincoln was honest, so was Washington; and if we look carefully at the lives of both, we find a great many things in Lincoln's to pain us, while Washington's - if it seems cold and statelywas always without reproach.”

"I suppose you know," said Patty, with a hot flush on her cheek; "but I don't like to hear you say it."

"I don't like to say it," said Mrs. Gray. “I think I love Lincoln as warmly as you do. It is not always the best people that we love the most. He was a 'gift of God.' We did not deserve him. But when Washington came, he was just as much a gift of God.'"

"I wish he had been unhappy just once," said Patty.

"I think he was," said her mother. "He loved a fair young girl, and was too shy to tell her,

and when his bolder friend married her, he was very unhappy for a while."

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'Mamma,” said Patty, "I don't feel as if he were a man at all. I feel as if he were a great big machine."

"He certainly was a man," said Mrs. Gray, laughing, "and when he was as old as you are, he had a friend in Richard Henry Lee, and he wrote letters to him that sound very much like Willie's letters to cousin Arthur."

"Oh, mamma!" said Patty, "have you ever seen them? I should like to read them so much!"

Mrs. Gray began to look through her papers, and at last she drew out two stiff yellow sheets.

"There are two," said she, "just as Colonel Washington copied them for me. While I am gone you may read* them, and tell me what you think of them when I come back."

Patty took the stiff papers, and as soon as mamma had gone, she began to trace out the faded words. The paper, on which the letters were written, did not look like any we have

*These letters have since been printed by Lossing from the originals, in the possession of Richard Henry Lee's son.