t fervent prayer that God would yet spare
the dear girl for the sake of her mother, and for Christ's sake. She had
already breathed her last a moment before he entered the room; but, in
his great sympathy for his wife, and his own passionate grief, the fact
was unrecognized, and he sought relief in prayer.

The son was between sixteen and seventeen years of age when the daughter
died, and was beginning to be a very wayward boy. He was sent to an
Episcopal school at Annapolis, Maryland, where he attended to
fox-hunting and other amusements more than he did to his studies. He
fell in love, also, with Eleanor Calvert, daughter of Benedict Calvert
of Mount Airy, and he entered into a matrimonial engagement with her.
Mrs. Washington was very much tried by the course of the young man, and,
after canvassing the whole subject carefully with her husband, he
addressed a letter to Miss Calvert's father, which was a compliment
alike to his head and heart. It was a very long letter, and we have
space for brief extracts only:

MOUNT VERNON, April 3, 1773.

"DEAR SIR,--I am now set down to write to you on a subject of
importance, and of no small embarrassment to me. My son-in-law
and ward, Mr. Custis, has paid his addresses to your second
daughter, and, having made some progress in her affections, has
solicited her in marriage. How far a union of this sort may be
agreeable to you, you best can tell; but I should think myself
wanting in candor were I not to confess that Miss Nelly's
amiable qualities are acknowledged on all hands, and that an
alliance with your family will be pleasing to his.

"This acknowledgment being made, you must permit me to add sir,
that at this, or in any short time, his youth, inexperience, and
unripened education, are, and will be, insuperable obstacles, in
my opinion, to the completion of the marriage. As his guardian,
I consider it my indispensable duty to endeavor to carry him
through a regular course of education, and to guard his youth to
a more advanced age, before an event on which his own peace and
the happiness of another are to depend, takes place....

"If the affection which they have avowed for each other is fixed
upon a solid basis, it will receive no diminution in the course
of two or three years, in which time he may prosecute his
studies, and thereby render himself more deserving of the lady
and u