Persons have speculated why it was that so many of the young women whom Washington took a fancy to, chilled and drew back when it came to the question of marriage. One very clever writer thinks that perhaps his nose was inordinately large in his youth, and that that repelled them. I do not pretend to say. So far as I know, psychologists have not yet made a sufficiently exact study of the nose as a determining factor in matrimony, to warrant an opinion from persons who have made no special study of the subject. The plain fact was that by his twenty-fifth year, Washington was an unusually presentable young man, more than six feet tall, broad-shouldered, very strong, slender and athletic, carefully polite in his manners, a boon companion, though he talked little, a sound and deliberate thinker; moreover, the part he had taken in the war with the Indians and the French made him almost a popular hero, and gave him a preëminent place among the Virginians, both the young and the old, of that time. The possession of the estate of Mount Vernon, which he had inherited from his half-brother, Lawrence, assured to him more than a comfortable fortune, and yet gossip wondered why he was not married. Thackeray intimates that Washington was too evidently on the lookout for a rich wife, which, if true, may account for some of the alleged rebuffs. I do not believe this assertion, nor do I find evidence for it. Washington was always a very careful, farseeing person, and no doubt had a clear idea of what constitutes desirable qualifications in marriage, but I believe he would have married a poor girl out of the workhouse if he had really loved her. However, he was not put to that test. One May day Washington rode off from Mount Vernon to carry despatches to Williamsburg. He stopped at William's Ferry for dinner with his friend Major Chamberlayne. At the table was Mrs. Daniel Parke Custis, who, under her maiden name of Martha Dandridge, was well known throughout that region for her beauty and sweet disposition. She was now a widow of twenty-six, with two small children. Her late husband, Colonel Custis, her elder by fifteen years, had left her a large estate called White House, and a fortune which made her one of the richest women in Virginia. From their first introduction, Washington and she seemed to be mutually attracted. He lingered throughout the afternoon and evening with her and went on to Williamsburg with his despatches the next morning. Having finished his business at the Capitol, he returned to William's Ferry, where he again saw Mrs. Custis, pressed his suit upon her and was accepted. Characteristic was it that he should conclude the matter so suddenly; but he had had marriage in his intentions for many years.