Mrs. Washington found little difficulty in bringing up her children. They were disciplined to obedience, and a simple word was her command. She was not given to any display of petulance or rage, but was steady, well-balanced, and unvarying in her mood. That she was dignified, even to stateliness, is shown us by the statement made by Lawrence Washington, of Chotauk, a relative and playmate of George in boyhood, who was often a guest at her house. He says--"I was often there with George--his playmate, schoolmate, and young man's companion. Of the mother I was ten times more afraid than I ever was of my own parents. She awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was indeed truly kind. I have often been present with her sons--proper tall fellows, too--and we were all as mute as mice; and even now, when time has whitened my locks, and I am the grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner, so characteristic in the father of his country, will remember the matron as she appeared, when the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, commanding and being obeyed. A Child of Mary. An old general was once asked by a friend how it was that, after so many years spent in the camp, he had come to be so frequent a communicant, receiving several times a week. "My friend," answered the old soldier, "the strangest part of it is, that my change of life was brought about before I ever listened to the word of a priest, and before I had set my foot in a church. After my campaigns, God bestowed on me a pious wife, whose faith I respected, though I did not share it. Before I married her she was a member of all the pious confraternities of her parish, and she never failed to add to her signature, _Child of Mary_. She never took it upon herself to lecture me about God, but I could read her thoughts in her countenance. When she prayed, every morning and night, her countenance beamed with faith and charity; when she returned from the church, where she had received, with a calmness, a sweetness and a patience, which had in them something of the serenity of heaven, she seemed an angel. When she dressed my wounds I found her like a Sister of Charity. "Suddenly, I myself was taken with the desire to love the God whom my wife loved so well, and who inspired her with those virtues which formed the joy of my life. One day I, who hitherto was without faith, who was such a complete stranger to the practices of religion, so far from the Sacraments, said to her: 'Take me to your confessor.' "Through the ministry of this man of God, and by the divine grace, I have become what I am, and what I rejoice to be." Dead Man's Island. THE STORY OF AN IRISH COUNTRY TOWN. T. P. O'CONNOR, M. P. CHAPTER XIX. MAT BECOMES A FENIAN.