teresting in the light of modern political methods to have it frankly stated that his election cost him thirty-nine pounds and six shillings, Virginia currency. This sum was probably dispensed upon the hogshead and barrel of punch, the thirty-six gallons of wine, the forty-three gallons of strong beer and cider, and upon the dinner to his friends, all of which items are charged among the election expenses. The election was especially gratifying to Washington, for although he had refused to take his friends' advice and quit his military duties in order to throw the weight of his personal influence into the campaign, he had the satisfaction of being elected, by a large majority, over the three opposing candidates. One of his friends in Williamsburg, writing to him of his election, said, "Your friends have been very sincere, so that you have received more votes than any other candidate. Colonel Ward sat on the bench and represented you, and he was carried around the town in the midst of a general applause, and huzzaing for Colonel Washington."

It was during the session of the House soon after his marriage, when Washington first took his seat, that the incident occurred which was first related by Mr. Wirt. Mr.

Robinson, Speaker of the House, thanked the new member for his services to his country, in the eloquent and florid language of the South. Washington arose to reply, and then, utterly unable to speak about himself, stood before his fellow-members blushing and stammering, until the Speaker with ready tact interposed: "Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess."

It is an old story, and often repeated; but when it was a fresh, new story, it must have filled with pride the heart of the wife, to whom it was probably told by every one except the chief actor in the little drama! There are only a few expressions of Martha Washington's that reveal her deep and reverent affection for her husband; for, like him, she was more than ordinarily self-contained and reserved.

IV

EARLY DAYS AT MOUNT VERNON

In

As soon as Colonel Washington's official duties permitted, he took his wife and her two children to Mount Vernon, which was ever after a home to them all in the truest sense of the word. Nothing perhaps more perfectly reveals the fine fibre of this man than his attitude toward his step-children, whose interests he made his own from the first. writing and speaking of them, Washington always said "the children," never "Mrs. Washington's children," and seldom "my stepchildren," as if the feeling of proprietorship was a pleasant part of his relation toward them. By a decree of the court he was made guardian to John and Martha Custis, a duty which involved the care of their estate, a not inconsiderable one. This obligation Washington discharged with his habitual faithfulness and accuracy, bestowing upon them, at the same time, the affection of a generous and tender, if not actively demonstrative nature.

What it must have been to Martha Washington to have her children so loved and cared

for, we can readily imagine. Although from the dark clouds that had early shadowed her pathway she emerged when scarcely more than a girl into the sunshine of a happy second marriage, the influence of her former sad experiences pervaded her whole life, making her always a most anxious wife and mother.

Of Washington's sympathy with his wife in her maternal anxieties we find many proofs. When young Custis was studying with Dr. Bouchier, in Annapolis, arrangements were made to have the boy undergo the trying process of inoculation for small-pox, without his mother's knowledge. A letter is still extant in which the step-father gives Dr. Bouchier the most explicit directions with regard to the management of the affair, requesting him to write him of Master Custis's progress, under cover to Lund Washington, and in a hand not his own, adding, "that Mrs. Washington had often wished that Jack would take and go through the disorder without her knowing it, that she might escape those tortures which suspense would throw her into, little as the cause might be for them.

Mrs. Washington's family letters abound in references to her children's health and her solicitude about her "dear Mamma," yet there is in them no trace of a morbid or unhealthful

dwelling upon, or anticipation of trouble; on the contrary there is every reason to believe that she entered heartily into the pleasures and ambitions of the new life that opened before her. In one of her letters to her sister, Mrs. Burwell Bassett, written in the second year of her marriage, she dwells upon the enjoyments and gayeties of the Mount Vernon neighborhood, and of her own and her children's improved health, assuring her family that they will find her "a fine, healthy girl" when she goes to Williamsburg in the autumn. Colonel Washington's official position rendered it important that he and his wife should take part in social functions of the capital, which they evidently did, as we learn from their letters and from Washington's diary that Mrs. Washington often accompanied him when he went to Williamsburg to attend the sessions of the House of Burgesses. This annual or semi-annual visit afforded her an opportunity of meeting her New Kent County relatives; and that they, in turn, visited Mount Vernon, is proved by numerous allusions to such visits. Colonel Washington records more than one hunt in Mr. Bassett's company, and in a letter written to Mrs. Bassett in June, 1760, Mrs. Washington speaks with much pleasure of a recent visit from