After taking part in the siege of Carthagena in the West Indies, Lawrence returned home. One can imagine with what interest George listened to his brother’s recitals! What Lawrence learned of George’s military exercises and play confirmed him in a plan which he had long ago formed and which had George’s hearty approval. He proposed to his parents that as soon as George should have reached his fourteenth year, the boy should be allowed to enter the English service as a naval cadet, and the carrying out of the plan was actually considered. Lawrence himself intended to return to his regiment to seek advancement in the army, but never did so. Instead, he fell in love with the daughter of a rich planter, William Fairfax. His advances were accepted and an engagement took place. His father was very much pleased to have his son enter into an alliance with the rich and highly esteemed house of Fairfax, but was not fortunate enough to live to see the wedding. George was eleven years old when he stood at the grave of his excellent father. The deceased left considerable property, so that his children from both marriages were well provided for. Lawrence received an estate on the banks of the Potomac, where he took his young bride a few months later. According to the terms of the will, no guardian was appointed for the younger children, but they were left in charge of their mother—a proof of the confidence the deceased had reposed in her. She was worthy of it. Irving says of her: “She was endowed with plain, direct good sense, thorough conscientiousness, and prompt decision; she governed her family strictly, but kindly, exacting deference, while she inspired affection.” She was Washington’s second wife, and George, her first-born, was her favorite. In spite of this, or rather because of it, she was very strict with him, where she deemed it necessary to protect him from excesses, and her faithful care was rewarded. At that time Sir Matthew Hale’s “Contemplations, Moral and Divine” was held in great esteem among the educated English colonists of Virginia. It was the mother’s favorite book, from which she not only drew strength and consolation for herself, but from which she also read aloud to her children. Her friends often found her thus occupied. She not only showed great insight in the selections which she made, but the deep spiritual feeling with which she read aloud from this and sometimes from other writings made a deep impression on her young hearers. Her enthusiasm was communicated to her children, and as the whole life and doings of the household were pervaded by a spirit of moral earnestness, these impressions received by the young minds were not easily effaced, but rather were confirmed. The copy of the above-mentioned work, in which the name of “Mary W.” is written by his mother’s own hand, remained a valued memento in George’s possession all his life, and he often declared that the precepts which it contained, expounded by the soulful