back to the discussion of hay and corn in the stable, and Washington, for the first and only recorded time of his life, enticed by pleasure, paused in the path of duty. In the morning he proceeded to Williamsburg; but the young widow resided at her seat, the White House, but a few miles from that city, and before Washington's mission was accomplished, his horse knew every pebble in the road that lay between. For the first time since his mil. itary experience began, the young commander had now the opportunity of pursuing his favorite theory of offensive warfare-untrammeled by the imbecility of legislators and the clogging etiquette of service. This he improved to the utmost, bearing in mind, no doubt, the disaster that resulted from his temporizing policy with Miss Phillipse, and as a result, before he turned his back upon the White House to proceed to Winchester, the fair widow was his promised wife, and the wedding was set to occur immediately after the close of the coming Duquesne campaign. On the 6th day of January, 1759, the marriage took place at the White House, and Washington thus laid down his service of the king to assume a domestic allegiance that nothing ever served to shake. Mr. Custis had left for equal division among his widow and children a large landed estate and more than forty-five thousand pounds sterling. Washington's estate had prospered, in spite of his inattention, and he was a man of wealth sufficient to enable him to maintain his state with the best in the land. For a few weeks the newly married couple remained at the seat of the bride; then they removed to Mount Vernon, the noble estate which had come to Washington from one of his brothers, and there established themselves in the comfort of a tranquil country life, which, for the greater part of two decades, was only to be interrupted by the duties of Washington as a legislator, and by occasional calls of business and pleasure.

One argument in favor of the effectiveness of the laws of heredity is found in the devotion of Washington to two modes of life—the military and that of the landed gentleman. He was first, last, and always a soldier, when military duty was to be done; failing that he was a planter. He loved the quiet and order of rural life. He improved his estate by personal attention when others of the jeune noblesse of Virginia allowed theirs to deteriorate from neglect and loaded them with mortgages, to satisfy the demands of lives of prodigality. Even with the details of his plantation work, sometimes actually in the manual execution of his own orders, Washington was associated. His establishment was conducted with all the widedoored hospitality that marked the Virginian life of the day; his table was furnished in the finest and most abundant manner, and was served by the best of servants. His wife went forth upon her stately round of visits in a coach and four, with footmen and outriders. Washington himself rode the choicest of English thoroughbreds, hunted after the finest hounds, rode upon the river in a beautiful barge manned by a crew of picked and uniformed slaves. His friends, even the venerable Lord Fairfax who had given him

his first lessons in the chase, often came to Mount Vernon, and the stables were amply supplied with mounts for all. Sometimes a British man-of-war anchored in the Potomac-then there were successive feasts at Mount Vernon, Belvoir, and other seats, with reciprocation on the part of the royal officers.

Back of it all, aside from the demands of his estate and the numerous private trusts committed to his care, Washington had not a little of public business, to serve as a foil to the free and happy home life we have described. As a member of the House of Burgesses he was much at Williamsburg, the seat of government; public missions often led him to Winchester and other points in the province, and sometimes he was called even farther-to Philadelphia or to Annapolis, the ultra conservative and aristocratic seat of the province of Maryland, where he, recognized as the foremost Virginian, and his highbred and brilliant wife were prominent in the gaiety with which the officers of the province surrounded themselves.

This is, in brief, the life that, from the fall of Duquesne to the sounding of the alarm that heralded the Revolution, engrossed the future leader of the people. Was ever an atmosphere less suited to fostering republicanism; was ever a man more fitted by association, education, taste, and interest to be a royalist, a tory, a recreant to the interests of his native soil?

With these words this record leaves what may be termed the first of the three periods of Washington's public life. He has served his apprenticeship and now awaits only the summons of the bugle, to move to his country's aid in a service destined to mark him as the one man in history who has been the creator of a popular government that has stood the shocks of a century.

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CHAPTER IX.

RIPENING OF THE REVOLUTION.

LTHOUGH the surrender of Montreal in 1757 ended the actual hos tilities between France and England, it was not until 1763 that a formal peace was concluded, at the convention of Fontainbleau. Thus, for the first time in ten years, the colonies seemed secure from any other warlike danger than that, always present, from the unstable and treacherous Indians. This very peril took definite form in May of that year, when the border Indians united in a conspiracy to simultaneously attack and overpower all the English forts from Detroit to Fort Pitt-the re-christened Fort Duquesne. This uprising resulted in the temporary loss of some of the smaller defences, and in a bloody massacre of settlers, but proved abortive as to its principal object. Washington's retirement to private life prevented his taking part in the defensive movement which followed, and his ardent desire to be allowed to remain a planter and a country gentleman, bade fair to be indefinitely gratified.

The seeds of discord between the colonies and the crown were, however, already sown, and the great agitation that led to a revolution which resulted in establishing the greatest republic of the world, was even then begun. England's policy toward the colonies is too well known to call for more than passing mention. At the time of which we are now speaking, the regard of the home country for her American dependencies was that of a purely commercial nation for a business investment. It is a matter of astonishment that there was mingled with this mercenary view so little feeling of kinship or sympathy. England neither gave to America the respect accorded to a foreign ally, nor the affection naturally subsisting between people of common blood and traditions. In America the feeling toward the mother country was still one of respect and love; long after the unjust policy of the crown had aroused an active resistance and that resistance had evoked a measure of retaliation, many Americans of the best class habitually referred to England as "home," and at no time until months after