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plied with the request of his uncle, and became an inmate of the family at Mount Vernon at the beginning of 1798.

Nelly Custis was at this time blooming into womanhood, and was exceedingly attractive in person and manners. She was a great favorite with her foster-father, and as she approached marriageable age, he had indulged many anxious thoughts respecting her. The occasional visits of Lawrence Lewis to Mount Vernon had been productive of the most intimate friendly relations between them, and when he became a resident there, his respect for Nelly grew into warm and tender attachment. Washington was pleased; but there came a rival, whose suit Mrs. Washington decidedly encouraged. That rival was a son of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who had just returned from Europe, and displayed all the accomplishments of a good education, adorned with the social graces derived from foreign travel.

"I find that young Mr. C has been at Mount Vernon, and, report says, to address my sister," wrote her brother to Washington, in April, 1798, from Annapolis, where he was at school. "It may be well to subjoin an opinion," he said, "which I believe is general in this place, viz., that he is a young man of the strictest probity and morals, discreet without closeness, temperate without excess, and modest without vanity; possessed of those amiable qualities and friendship which are so commendable, and with few of the vices of the age. In short, I think it a most desirable match, and wish that it may take place with all my heart."

Washington, who favored the suit of his nephew, closed abruptly the correspondence with young Custis on that sub ject, by saying, in a letter to him a fortnight afterward:

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Young Mr. C-— came here about a fortnight ago, tʊ dinner, and left us next morning after breakfast. If his object was such as you say has been reported, it was not declared here; and therefore the less is said upon the subject, particularly by your sister's friends, the more prudent it will be until the subject develops itself more."

In his next letter, in reply to this, young Custis ventured only to say: "With respect to what I mentioned of Mr. C in my last, I had no other foundation but report, which has since been contradicted."*

Lawrence Lewis triumphed, yet the foster-father had some time doubted respecting the result, for other suitors came to Mount Vernon, and made their homage at the shrine of Nelly's wit and beauty.

"I was young and romantic then," she said to a lady, from whose lips Mr. Irving has quoted-"I was young and romantic then, and fond of wandering alone by moonlight in the woods of Mount Vernon. Grandmamma thought it wrong and unsafe, and scolded and coaxed me into a promise that I would not wander in the woods again unaccompanied. But I was missing one evening, and was brought home from the interdicted woods to the drawing-room, where the General was walking up and down with his hands behind him, as was his wont. Grandmamma, seated in her great arm-chair, opened a severe reproof."

* For very interesting correspondence between General Washington and his adopted son, G. W. P. Custis, while the latter was in college at Princeton and Annapolis, from November, 1796, to January, 1799, see Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis edited by the author of this work.

"Poor Miss Nelly," says Mr. Irving, "was reminded of her promise, and taxed with her delinquency. She knew that she had done wrong-admitted her fault, and essayed no excuse; but, when there was a slight pause, moved to retire from the room. She was just shutting the door when she overheard the General attempting, in a low voice, to intercede in her behalf. 'My dear,' observed he, 'I would say no more—perhaps she was not alone.'

"His intercession stopped Miss Nelly in her retreat. She reopened the door and advanced up to the General with a firm step. Sir,' said she, 'you brought me up to speak the truth, and when I told Grandmamma I was alone, I hope you believed I was alone.'

"The General made one of his most magnanimous bows. 'My child,' replied he, 'I beg your pardon.''

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Lawrence and Nelly were married at Mount Vernon on Washington's birthday, 1799. It was Friday, and a bright and beautiful day. The early spring flowers were budding in the hedges, and the bluebird, making its way cautiously northward, gave a few joyous notes in the garden that morning. The occasion was one of great hilarity at Mount Vernon, for the bride was beloved by all, and Major Lewis, the bridegroom, had ever been near to the heart of his uncle, since the death of his mother, who so much resembled her illustrious brother, that when, in sport, she would place a chapeau on her head and throw a military cloak over her shoulders, she might easily have been mistaken for the Chief.

It was the wish of the young bride, said her brother, that the general of the armies of the United States should wear, on that occasion, the splendidly-embroidered uniform which the

board of general officers had adopted, but Washington could not be persuaded to appear in a costume bedizened with tinsel. He preferred the plain old continental blue and buff, and the modest black ribbon cockade. Magnificent white plumes, which General Pinckney had presented to him, he gave to the bride; and to the Reverend Thomas Davis, rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, who performed the marriage ceremony, he presented an elegant copy of Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, in eight octavo volumes, saying, when he I handed them to him:

"These, sir, were written by a remarkable lady, who visited America many years ago; and here is also her treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, which she sent me just before her death-read it and return it to me."

With characteristic modesty, Washington made no allusion to the fact that Mrs. Macaulay (Catharine Macaulay Graham) crossed the Atlantic in the spring of 1785, for no other purpose, as she avowed, than to see the great leader of the American armies, whom she revered as a second Moses. Washington thus alluded to her, in a letter to General Knox, written on the 18th of June, 1785:

"Mrs. Macaulay Graham, Mr. Graham, and others, have just left us, after a stay of about ten days. A visit from a lady so celebrated in the literary world could not but be very flattering to me."

The year 1799-next to the last year of the century, and the last of Washington's life-was now drawing to a close, and he appears to have made preparations for his departure, as if the fact that the summons from earth would soon be presented had been revealed to him. In March he said, in a letter to

Mr. McHenry, after alluding to business affairs: "My greatest anxiety is to have all these concerns in such a clear and distinct form, that no reproach may attach itself to me when I have taken my departure for the land of spirits.”

In July he executed his last will and testament. It was written entirely by himself, and at the bottom of each page of manuscript he signed his name. During the autumn he digested a complete system of management for his estate for several succeeding years, in which were tables designating the rotation of crops. This document occupied thirty folio pages, all written in his peculiar and clear style. It was completed only four days before his death, and was accompanied by a letter, dated December 10th, 1799, to his manager or steward, giving him special directions, as if the master was about to depart on a journey.

At this time Washington was in full health and vigor, and the beautiful days of a serene old age were promised him. He had once said: "I am of a short-lived family, and cannot expect to remain very long upon the earth;" yet now, at the of almost sixty-eight, he appeared to have full expectations of octogenarian honors.

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Only a few days before his death, he had walked out, on a cold, frosty morning, with his nephew, Major Lewis, and pointed out his anticipated improvements, especially showing him the spot where he intended to build a new family vault. "This change," he said, "I shall make the first of all, for I may require it before the rest."

"When I parted from him," said Major Lewis, to James K. Paulding, "he stood on the steps of the front door, where he took leave of myself and another. He had taken his usual

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