rence that never failed to mark his
conduct towards his mother were among the most beautiful traits of his
character. The management of the family estate, and the education of
the younger children, were concerns in which he ever took the
liveliest interest; and to make these labors light and easy to her by
his aid or counsel was a pleasure to him indeed. This grateful duty
duly done, he once more sought the shelter of Mount Vernon, to whose
comforts he had been for so many months a stranger. The toils of a
soldier's life were now exchanged for the peaceful labors of a
husbandman. Nor did this change, to his well-ordered mind, bring with
it any idle regrets; for the quiet pursuits of a farmer's life yielded
him, young, ardent, and adventurous as he was, scarcely less delight
than the profession of arms, and even more as he grew in years.

The affair of the Great Meadows roused the mother-country at last to a
full sense of the danger that threatened her possessions in America.
Accordingly, to regain what had been lost, money, and munitions of
war, and a gallant little army fitted out in the completest style of
that day, were sent over with all possible expedition, under the
command of Major-Gen. Braddock.

From the shrubby heights of Mount Vernon, Washington could look down,
and behold the British ships-of-war as they moved slowly up the
majestic Potomac, their decks thronged with officers and soldiers
dressed in showy uniform, their polished arms and accoutrements
flashing back the cold, clear light of the February sun. From their
encampment at Alexandria, a few miles distant, he could hear the
booming of their morning and evening guns, as it came roiling over the
hills and through the woods, and shook his quiet home like a sullen
summons to arms. Often, no longer able to keep down his youthful
ardor, he would mount his horse, and, galloping up to the town, spend
hours there in watching the different companies, as with the precision
of clockwork they went through their varied and difficult evolutions.
At these sights and sounds, all the martial spirit within him took
fire again.

To Gen. Braddock, who commanded all the forces in America, provincial
as well as royal, Gov. Dinwiddie and other Virginia notables spoke in
the highest terms of the character of young Washington; giving him at
the same time still further particulars of the brave and soldierly
conduct he had so signally shown during the campaign of the previou