his wife?
He built a large house at Mount Vernon with a great porch fronting on
the Potomac; and when Miss Fairfax became Mrs. Washington and went into
this home as its mistress, people said that there was not a handsomer or
happier young couple in all Virginia.

After young George Washington had changed his mind about going to sea,
he went up to Mount Vernon to live with his elder brother. For Lawrence
had great love for the boy, and treated him as his father would have
done.

At Mount Vernon George kept on with his studies in surveying. He had a
compass and surveyor's chain, and hardly a day passed that he was not
out on the plantation, running lines and measuring his brother's fields.

Sometimes when he was busy at this kind of work, a tall, white-haired
gentleman would come over from Belvoir to see what he was doing and to
talk with him. This gentleman was Sir Thomas Fairfax, a cousin of the
owner of Belvoir. He was sixty years old, and had lately come from
England to look after his lands in Virginia; for he was the owner of
many thousands of acres among the mountains and in the wild woods.

Sir Thomas was a courtly old gentleman, and he had seen much of the
world. He was a fine scholar; he had been a soldier, and then a man of
letters; and he belonged to a rich and noble family.

It was not long until he and George were the best of friends. Often they
would spend the morning together, talking or surveying; and in the
afternoon they would ride out with servants and hounds, hunting foxes
and making fine sport of it among the woods and hills.

And when Sir Thomas Fairfax saw how manly and brave his young friend
was, and how very exact and careful in all that he did, he said: "Here
is a boy who gives promise of great things. I can trust him."

Before the winter was over he had made a bargain with George to survey
his lands that lay beyond the Blue Ridge mountains.

I have already told you that at this time nearly all the country west of
the mountains was a wild and unknown region. In fact, all the western
part of Virginia was an unbroken wilderness, with only here and there a
hunter's camp or the solitary hut of some daring woodsman.

But Sir Thomas hoped that by having the land surveyed, and some part of
it laid out into farms, people might be persuaded to go there and
settle. And who in all the colony could do this work better than his
young friend, George Washington?

It was a bright day in March, 1748, w