younger than her lover, although she has so often been spoken of as the elder of the two. The picture that gives us the best idea of the attractions of the young widow to whom Washington paid his addresses in 1758 is a portrait by John Woolaston, which hangs in the home of her descendants, the Lees of Lexington. This portrait, although crude and inartistic in detail and finish, gives us a strong and definite idea of the subject. It represents a handsome woman in the bloom of early matronhood, a dignified and essentially feminine personality, serene and well-poised, and such Martha Custis seems always to have been.1

1 An animated controversy was maintained, several years since, with regard to this portrait of Mrs. Daniel Parke Custis, Mr. Moncure D. Conway and Mr. L. W. Washington claiming that the Léxington portrait represented Mrs. Fielding Lewis, General Washington's sister; while, upon the other hand, Prof. W. G. Brown, of Washington and Lee University, and Mr. Charles Henry Hart, of Philadelphia, quite as earnestly insisted that the Lexington portrait was of Mrs. Custis, as had always been supposed.

There is certainly some resemblance between the Woolaston portraits of Mrs. Custis and Mrs. Fielding Lewis, but no more striking resemblance than is often found in the portraits of different individuals by the same artist. The strongest argument is that advanced by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, who says that Mr. G. W. P. Custis, who was reared at Mount Vernon, and lived there until Mrs. Washington's death in 1802, when he was twenty-one years of age, never expressed any doubt about this painting as a portrait of his grandmother. Is it at all likely that this grandson, living as he did from his

A fanciful sketch has been drawn of the first interview between the stately lovers, who are represented as standing stiffly by the mantel, while the Custis children play upon the floor. This scene is purely imaginary, but the Chamberlayne house is still standing, although Mrs. Custis's own residence, the White House, was destroyed during the Civil War. As the story runs, Colonel Washearliest childhood until manhood at Mount Vernon, should never have discovered that the portrait which he believed was that of his grandmother was in fact that of General Washington's sister? Nor is it likely that Mr. G. W. P. Custis would have allowed this portrait to be reproduced as a picture of Mrs. Washington to illustrate the works of Irving and Sparks, had he not been quite sure that the portrait was of his Grandmother Washington.

Since this little volume has been going through the press, the author has been so fortunate as to come across a description of the family portraits at Mount Vernon, by Mr. John Hunter, an Englishman who visited General Washington in 1785. After speaking of a picture of the Marquis de Lafayette and his family, Mr. Hunter says: “Another of the General with his marching orders, when he was Colonel Washington in the British Army against the French in the last War; and two of Mrs. Washington's children, . also a picture of Mrs. Washington when a young woman."

As no other portrait of Mrs. Washington when a young woman has ever been spoken of, it is evident that the English gentleman refers to the disputed picture which now hangs at Lexington, where are also the other portraits of which he speaks, those of Mrs. Washington's two little children, and the Peale portrait of Washington in his uniform of a Virginia colonel. That this portrait was hanging at Mount Vernon, and was shown to Mr. Hunter as a portrait of Mrs. Washington, seems to settle definitely the question of its authenticity.

ington, attended by his servant Bishop,1 was crossing William's Ferry, which was directly opposite the Chamberlayne house, on his way to the capital of the Colony, where he had some business of importance with the Governor. Major Chamberlayne met him at the ferry, and pressed him to accept the hospitality of his house for a day or two. Colonel Washington at first declined, in consequence of the important business that claimed his presence in Williamsburg; but when the hospitable gentleman added to his persuasions the inducement that the loveliest widow in all Virginia was under his roof, the young officer loosed his bridle-rein, accepted the invitation to dine with Major Chamberlayne, and gave Bishop orders to have the horses ready for departure at an early hour in the afternoon.

The story of this brief soldierly wooing has often been told, but by no person who had

1 A marked characteristic of Washington's was his power to attract to himself "all sorts and conditions of men." The common soldiers loved him with devoted loyalty, and Braddock, although he unfortunately turned a deaf ear to his young staff officer's advice, was deeply attached to him personally, proving his affection by bequeathing to him his body servant and his favorite horse. When the British commander met his death in the western wilds of Pennsylvania, it was Washington who attended to his burial, and, standing beside that grave in the wilderness, read over the fallen general the burial service of the English Church.

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better opportunities of giving a correct version of it than Mr. G. W. P. Custis, in his Recollections of Washington. He says that "they were mutually pleased on this their first interview, nor is it remarkable; they were of an age when impressions are strongest. The lady was fair to behold, of fascinating manners and splendidly endowed with worldly benefits. The hero fresh from his early fields, redolent of fame, and with a form on which every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man. The morning passed pleasantly away. Evening came, with Bishop, true to his orders, firm at his post, holding his favorite charger with one hand, while with the other he was waiting to offer the ready stirrup. The sun sank in the horizon, yet the Colonel appeared not. And then the old soldier marvelled at his chief's delay. "'T was strange, 't was passing strange,' -surely he was not wont to be a single moment behind his appointments, for he was the most punctual of all men. Meantime the host enjoyed the scene of the veteran on duty at the gate while the colonel was so agreeably employed in the parlor, and proclaiming that no guest ever left his house after sunset, his military visitor was, without much difficulty, persuaded to order Bishop to put up the horses

for the night. The sun rode high in the heavens the ensuing day when the enamored soldier pressed with his spur his charger's side, and speeded on his way to the seat of government.

Upon his return from Williamsburg, Colonel Washington visited Mrs. Custis in her own house. Tradition says that upon this occa-. sion the lover was rowed across the river by a slave, who, when he was asked whether his mistress was at home, replied, "Yes, sah, I reckon you 'se the man what's 'spected;" which proves that the fair widow was in readiness to receive her guest. The engagement evidently took place during this visit, as the lovers did not meet again until the time of their marriage, the following January.

We are all familiar with Mr. Thackeray's adroit weaving of this love-story into his Virginians, and, rereading this chapter in the light of later Colonial research, are surprised at his accurate presentation of the life of the Old Dominion, which he says he found more like the England of the Georges than was the England of his own day. In the hands of this master of style and fancy the simple mistake of the gossip Mountain, who found in Colonel Washington's room some lines in which he spoke of his approaching marriage