a Dandridge,
the widow of Daniel Parke Custis. She was young, pretty, intelligent,
and an heiress, and her society seemed to attract the young soldier.
The afternoon wore away, the horses came to the door at the appointed
time, and after being walked back and forth for some hours were
returned to the stable. The sun went down, and still the colonel
lingered. The next morning he rode away with his dispatches, but on
his return he paused at the White House, the home of Mrs. Custis, and
then and there plighted his troth with the charming widow. The wooing
was brief and decisive, and the successful lover departed for the
camp, to feel more keenly than ever the delays of the British officers
and the shortcomings of the colonial government. As soon as Fort
Duquesne had fallen he hurried home, resigned his commission in the
last week of December, and was married on January 6, 1759. It was a
brilliant wedding party which assembled on that winter day in the
little church near the White House. There were gathered Francis
Fauquier, the gay, free-thinking, high-living governor, gorgeous in
scarlet and gold; British officers, redcoated and gold-laced, and all
the neighboring gentry in the handsomest clothes that London credit
could furnish. The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and
brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears; while the bridegroom
appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold
buckles at his knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony the bride
was taken home in a coach and six, her husband riding beside her,
mounted on a splendid horse and followed by all the gentlemen of the
party.

[Illustration: Mary Morris born Mary Philipse]

The sunshine and glitter of the wedding-day must have appeared to
Washington deeply appropriate, for he certainly seemed to have all
that heart of man could desire. Just twenty-seven, in the first flush
of young manhood, keen of sense and yet wise in experience, life
must have looked very fair and smiling. He had left the army with a
well-earned fame, and had come home to take the wife of his choice and
enjoy the good-will and respect of all men. While away on his last
campaign he had been elected a member of the House of Burgesses, and
when he took his seat on removing to Williamsburg, three months after
his marriage, Mr. Robinson, the speaker, thanked him publicly in
eloquent words for his services to the country. Washington rose to
reply, but he was so u