To George he left the farm on the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, some land on Deep Run, and ten slaves; besides, the property bequeathed to Lawrence was to go to George, as the eldest son of the second wife, if Lawrence should die childless, or if a child born to him should die also. Samuel, John, and Charles each received land and slaves, and their sister Betty four hundred pounds in money.

The young widow held the estates of her young children in trust and was to have the place on which they then lived until George should come of age, but before the ten years elapsed, other property reverted to him, under his father's will, and he never took "Ferry Farm," as they called it, from his mother.

Besides this, Mary Washington had sixteen hundred acres of her own and a special legacy from her husband. It was a large estate, and the good father must have felt, when he made his will, that he was providing liberally for them all.

But the young wife, probably because Lawrence had received more than all her children together, felt by the contrast that she and they were poor, indeed. They had plenty of land

-Washington.

but little money, so they were "land poor, like most of the Virginia planters of their day.

The two half-brothers, being of age, came into possession of their estates at once. In June, two months after his father's death, Lawrence was married to Anne, the daughter of the Honorable William Fairfax, of "Belvoir," who, of course, brought to him more money and lands. Lawrence built an elegant mansion at Hunting Creek Place, and named it Mount Vernon, in honor of the admiral under whom he had served in the Spanish war.

Austin, the other half-brother, married Anne Aylett, a wealthy belle of Westmoreland, who added her income to "Wakefield," where they soon went to live.

Mary Washington was left with her five children at "Ferry Farm." While her husband lived she had felt that she had a share in all his estates and now she seemed to be quite poor by comparison. She began at once to make George, though he was only eleven, feel the responsibility of being her eldest son.

This, with his serious disposition and his father's dying injunction, made him feel deeply

the necessity of providing for his own future, if not for the entire family.

His mother, haunted with the constant dread of poverty, could not help contrasting George's disadvantages with the advantages of his halfbrothers. But George did not manifest the slightest degree of envy, as might have been expected. He had been devoted to his father, and for him to resent what had been so carefully planned for them all would be a grievous wrong to his father's memory.

If Captain Washington had lived long enough George might have been sent to William and Mary College, then fifty years old, and in age second only to Harvard in all America. It is doubtful if Augustine Washington intended to send George to Appleby School, where he and his eldest two sons had gone to complete their education. George, being a "younger son," would have to shift for himself, and could not expect to be fitted for the career of a Virginia "gentleman," like his much-admired brother Law

rence.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that if men's manners are "finished" in England, "so, too, were their virtues." He had doubtless

seen agreeable young fellows wholly spoiled by being sent abroad to school. And to George's practical mind, "Mother Wit" would fit him "better than Mother Country" for getting on in the world.

Though George reconciled himself to this state of things, his mother did not. Her oldest boy was just as worthy of such privileges as any other mother's son, and to have him denied them made her discontented. She was a most capable woman, well fitted to manage the estate left to her care.

Because of the lack of schools in Virginia, she was not highly educated, though she was of a good Virginia family, because girls were not sent away to school like their brothers. Mary Washington was an admirable mother to George. From her he inherited the qualities that did most to make him the great man he became.

She brought him up strictly in accordance with the ideas of her time. Her children were thoroughly instructed in the catechism of the Church of England, and were taken regularly to Church. Sunday afternoons she often read to them from Matthew Hale's "Commentaries,

Moral and Divine," to which she added commentaries of her own, on their conduct.

George always retained a wholesome respect, which amounted almost to awe, for his mother. This formal reverence he never forgot, always beginning his letters to her with "Honored Madam," and signing himself, "Your dutiful son." Lawrence Washington, of Choptank, the Cousin "Lal" George was visiting when his father died, said of Mary Washington long afterward:

"I was often there with George, his playmate, schoolmate, and young man's companion. Of the mother I was ten times more afraid than of my own parents. She awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was, indeed, truly kind.

"I have often been present with her sons, proper, tall fellows, too, and we were mute as mice; and even now, when time has whitened my locks, and I am the grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that aweinspiring air and manner so character