lord not only rewarded him handsomely for his services, but
continued to cherish for him through life a truly fatherly affection.

In after-years, Washington was wont to turn with peculiar fondness to
this period of his life, as perhaps affording the only leisure he had
ever known for sentimental musings, and the indulgence of what fancy
he may have had in those bright visions of future happiness, fame, or
enterprise; to which all men are more or less given during the
immature years of youth. This, to my mind, is to be easily enough
accounted for, if we but ascribe it to a certain little circumstance;
concerning which, as it exercised no small influence on his mind at
the time, I will now tell you all that is known, and, it may be, more
than ever can be known with possible certainty.

From a letter written by him at the age of fifteen, and also from some
sad and plaintive verses of his own composition found in his
copy-book, we learn that the boy, who should grow to become the
greatest man that ever made this glorious world of ours more glorious
with his wise precepts and virtuous example, was at this time a victim
of the tender passion called _love_, of which most of you little folks
as yet know nothing but the four letters that spell the word.

The object of this early attachment was a damsel, of whom nothing
certain is known, as her name, from the fact of its never being
repeated above a whisper, has not come down to our day, but who was
called by him in his confidential correspondence the Lowland Beauty.
As he had none of that self-assurance which lads of his age are apt to
mistake for pluck or spirit, he never ventured to make known the
secret of this passion to the object thereof; and it is probable, that
we, even at the big end of a hundred years, are wiser as to this
tender passage of his life than was ever the young lady herself. Not
having the courage to declare the sentiments that warmed his breast,
he wisely resolved to banish them from his mind altogether; and this,
I will venture to say, was one reason why he so readily accepted of
old Lord Fairfax's offer, and was willing for so long a time to make
his abiding-place in the wilderness. But it was months, and even
years, before he could get the better of his weakness, if such it
could be justly called; for a wilderness, let me tell you (and I hope
the hint will not be lost on my little friends), is the last place in
the world, that a man, or a boy either,