gain" has ceased to beat. The vessels lying at anchor must be haunted by ghostly crews; they give no sign of life. The steamboat that plies her way between Washington and Alexandria seems to approach the wharf cautiously, as if fearing to awake a slumberer. Even the fishing industry for the beautiful river has appears to not ceased to yield her tribute move but languidly. All this has its delightful aspect, and he who would view a lotus-eater in his paradise should watch an Alexandria darky, dangling his legs over the worn beams of the dock under pretense of fishing,-listening to

steamboat, and to pay one's respects to the house and tomb hedged in by regulations, if not, indeed, " personally conducted." She who pens these pages prefers to recall the dear old place as visited in childhood, before the home of Washington had passed from the hands of Washingtons, and before the ties of intimacy linking then neighboring but now scattered Virginia families had become mere matter writ in history.

In the pleasant days so well remembered, the cordial owner of Mount Vernon, Mr. Augustine Washington, had a houseful of

boys and girls to make merry on the classic portico, or to race unchecked through the boxwalks of the fragrant garden. Our enjoyment of certain summer holidays passed in such butterfly pursuits, varied by accompanying a fatherly old negro to catch crabs upon the river-bank, was unalloyed. Through the mists of memory arises a certain morning spent in castle-building upon a grassy bank overlook

ing the mausoleum, where two little girls, one of them the pretty, dark-eyed, roguish Louisa, daughter of the house, lay at full length upon the turf, and reared their unsubstantial palaces as fast and foolishly as tongue could fly. Wearying of this, there were the garden to rifle of its fruit, posies to pick and cast away; and when the ardor of the midday sun drove these spendthrifts of time indoors, it was to visit on tiptoe the darkened glories of parlor and library. We made short work of historical relics and of ancestral reminiscences in general. I remember considering them rather a bore. But the great key of the Bastile hanging in the hall enchained our vagrant fancy in weird fashion. We tried to picture the mob surging like a torrent over the ruins of the ancient stronghold. A few steps brought us beneath the ornate frame surrounding the portrait of Louis XVI., swathed in his purple and loaded down with ermine, and all play and laughter ceased when the story of his awful fate was told by the kindly guardian of our footsteps in those sacred rooms.

The writer was never again at Mount Vernon while it remained in the possession of the Washingtons. She recalls with pleasure being allowed to form one of a party invited to be present on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales, when lovely Harriet Lane, then mistress of the White House, was hostess, and genial Sir Henry Holland went about winning golden opinions from his fellow-guests.

To introduce to my readers the Mount Vernon of olden days, I will use a description made by Washington himself:

"No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated. In a high and healthy country, in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, on one of the

finest rivers in the world, a river well stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herring, bass, carp, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tide-water; several valuable fisheries appertain to it. The whole shore, in fact, is one vast fishery."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

A sovereign charm of the place, omitted in this sketch, is the abundance of fine trees crowning the projecting bluff on which the house is built. To increase the numbers and variety of his trees was the constant occupation of Washington's home-life. Each season of the year found him employed in providing for them. On the 10th of January he notes that the white thorn is in berry; on the 20th of the same month he clears the undergrowth from a grove of favorite pines; in March he plants hemlock; in April drills are made for sowing holly-berries.

People living in the colder latitudes of the United States have little idea of the exceeding beauty and brilliancy conferred upon a landscape by the holly-tree. In Virginia it grows to a commanding height, expanding into an umbrella of glossy, prickly foliage, thickly studded with bunches of scarlet berries, which, rising against a background of deep blue sky, makes in midwinter a spectacle not to be forgotten.

Again we read, in Washington's journal, of a morning spent in teaching a coral honeysuckle vine to entwine the trunk of some ancient forest monarch; or in planting acorns and buckeye nuts brought from the fatal field of Monongahela, and horse-chestnuts from his early home in Westmoreland. Elsewhere, the grounds of Mount Vernon were clad by Nature in a rich garment of foliage native to the soil. Tulip-poplar, sweet-gum, sassafras, dogwood, oak, mulberry, aspen, ash, locust, and fringetree are among the deciduous trees most kindly in their growth in Fairfax county.

About fourteen miles below Alexandria, upon the opposite bank of the Potomac from Mount Vernon, was Belvoir, the estate of Colonel William Fairfax, a Yorkshireman, who, after a youth of wandering and of stout military service for the king, had come to cast his fortunes with the colony. This gentleman had held a variety of civil positions of responsibility in Virginia, and finally succeeded to that of pres

ident of the council. His establishment was large, and was kept up in the English fashion, with liveried servants, waxed floors, fine equipages, and other indications of Old World ceremony. Around it rallied the gay society of the tide-water region, and there, attracted by the bright eyes of Anne Fairfax, Lawrence Washington, elder brother of George, sought and found his bride. In order that the young wife might not be far removed from her family, Lawrence decided to make their future home on his estate opposite Belvoir. Here he built the original dwelling and laid out the grounds, naming the place Mount Vernon, in honor of Admiral Vernon, under whom he had served with distinction at the siege of Cartagena.

Of Mount Vernon under the régime of Lawrence and Anne his wife, tradition has left

Pippin, the Nonpareil, the Aromatick, and the Medlar apples. They hunt the fox, and after a hard day in the saddle, drink each other's health and that of his sacred majesty in a "nipperkin" of cognac. Visits between the two places are made with the help of a barge manned by liveried negroes. When the ladies do not meet, the men exchange news of the health of "my dear Dame." By the evening fire, they read letters from a kinswoman in England, daughter of a lord, mother of an earl, who declares herself in "an ill steat of helth," and wishes them "menny happy new years." Or else they wait anxiously for news of Thomas Fairfax, Colonel Fairfax's second son, who is cruising in an English man-of-war seeking encounter with the French off the far Indian coast. They fish, shoot canvas-backs,

little detail. From a number of Fairfax letters recently overlooked, I gather chiefly friendly discussion of the questions of the day, and of domestic gossip, congratulations, condolences, and moral reflections, concluding with the "humble service" of the period. Those were cheerful days at Mount Vernon and Belvoir. The masters ride about their plantations on horseback - Belvoir comprised nearly two thousand acres of land, and Mount Vernon as many more-and they consult about mending the breed of their horses; and a record remains of an occasion when, to make sure of better dogs, they decide to ship a present of turkeys to a friend in England, who in return sends, by "Captain Cooling of the Elizabeth," two dogs and one bitch of Sir Edward Filmore's hounds. They exchange grafts of the Golden

sail and row canoes upon the placid waters of the Potomac, lying like a sheet of silver between their homes.

Meantime, Lawrence Washington, in common with the rest of the family, began to be troubled about the career of his half-brother George, who was, at fourteen, shy, awkward, and, on the whole, rather a difficult problem for his anxious friends to solve. The Widow Washington, a good sensible woman of the old Virginia type, suggested to her step-son that he might take his father-in-law into his confidence, and "see what could be done for George." Colonel Fairfax sent for the lad to visit him, was pleased with his modest and manly bearing, and agreed with Lawrence that the royal navy was the best direction for George's strong military bent.

At this time

arrived tidings of the death in battle of young Thomas Fairfax, who fell "fighting in his country's cause, on board the Harwich ship-ofwar, in an engagement with Monsieur Bourdonaye, commander of a French squadron on the Indian coast, the 26th day of June, 1745, in the twenty-first year of his age." It was, no doubt, this sad event that struck terror to the widow's heart, and strengthened her to resist the scheme proposed for her son. Perhaps, also, she was intimidated by a dolorous letter of warning penned to her on this subject by her brother, Mr. Joseph Ball, then residing in London:

"I understand you are advised and have some thoughts of putting your son to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a trade, for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the common liberty of the subject, for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month and make him take twenty-three, and cut him and beat him like a negro, or rather, like a dog. And as to any considerable promotion in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have influence, and he has none."

The naval scheme was abandoned, and at this critical moment arrived upon the scene of Belvoir and Mount Vernon the person who, of all others, had most potent influence in shaping the future of the patriot. The sixth Lord Fairfax came from England to take up his abode in the Virginian wilds, and, conceiving a warm attachment for young Washington, made him his companion in many a hunting

excursion, aiding him with money and with advice, until he was enabled to attain some degree of independence in his favorite occupation of surveying. During the years before his brother Lawrence's death, George resided mainly at Mount Vernon, and upon the wooded hillsides his first sentimental passion was experienced. He sighed for his "lowland beauty," as, in after days in a colder clime, he sighed for charming Mary Phillips. He wrote rhymes, wherein his "poor restless heart, wounded by Cupid's dart," played a prominent part. He went a-courting, as the good Virginia phrase hath it, to the Cary houses at Ceelys and Rich Neck, and at the shrine of that famed colonial belle, Miss Sally, laid the offering of his noble heart and name. Miss Cary refused him, to marry his friend George William Fairfax. Long afterwards, upon her death in Bath, England, her husband's heirs in Virginia found among her papers letters addressed to her by Washington, containing a frank acknowledgment that his disappointment in securing her as his wife had seriously affected the happiness of his life. That these letters should be kept secret in the family inheriting them was decided by its head. For nearly a century they have been handed down, and are here mentioned simply as a side-light thrown on the love-life of Washington at Mount Vernon.

A break in the congenial life on the Potomac plantation was at hand. A note of war was sounded among the British colonists. In Virginia the province was broken up into military districts, and to one of these Washington was appointed adjutant-general with the rank of major. A school-of-arms, officered by Adjutant Muse, Lawrence Washington's old companion of West Indian days, as teacher of manual exercise, and by that roving blade, Jacob Van Braam, as master of fence, was instituted at Mount Vernon for the benefit of the newly appointed officer. At this juncture Lawrence Washington fell ill. For his health's sake the two brothers undertook a voyage to Barbadoes, where George was attacked by small-pox. In 1752 the good and generous Lawrence died, leaving as his heir a puny daughter, whose early demise placed Mount Vernon in the keeping of George Washington. For a time he devoted himself to regulating affairs upon the estate and to caring for the interests of the widow. The year following saw him engaged in the frontier hostilities, where, as he writes, he was "soundly beaten."