“It is raining,” he corrected himself, which remark but added to the girl’s mirth. “Where are we?” asked his mother as Peggy took her place beside her. “We are near His Excellency’s plantation, mother.” “His Excellency?” cried Peggy. “Do you mean General Washington’s house, friend nurse?” “To be sure, Peggy,” said Mrs. Johnson glancing about her. “Mount Vernon lies just beyond us on our left. We must put in there.” CHAPTER XII—THE HOME OF WASHINGTON “By broad Potowmack’s azure tide, Where Vernon’s Mount in sylvan pride, Displays its beauties fair.” —“Ode to Mount Vernon,” David Humphreys. “Oh, I wonder if Lady Washington hath returned yet from headquarters,” cried Peggy so interested in the fact that she might again behold that lady that she forgot that it was raining. “I would like so much to see her! I knew her quite well at Middlebrook in New Jersey when the army lay there for winter quarters two years ago. Mother and I were there with father.” “’Tis early for her to return from headquarters, is it not?” asked the nurse, touching the horse lightly with the whip. “Methinks that I have heard her say that she always heard the first and last guns of a campaign; and campaigns do not begin in April at the North.” “True,” said Peggy. “Then will it not be an intrusion to go there during her absence?” “Intrusion to escape a thunder-storm?” laughed Mrs. Johnson. “Hardly, my child. We should be welcome even though we did not seek to avoid a drenching. The general hath left orders with his overseer, Mr. Lund Washington, that hospitality should be extended to every one the same as though he were there in person. Then too every one in this part of the country goes to Mount Vernon for help in every sort of distress. Oh, yes! we shall be very welcome.” “Mount Vernon?” mused the girl. “I wonder why ’tis so called? We call our country home ‘Strawberry Hill,’ but that is because of the vast quantities of strawberries that grow there. I see not why the general should call his place Mount Vernon.”