We next visited the stately mansion, whose plan as well as that for all improvements made, were drawn by Washington. "Convenience and desirability he sought in his home," and last but not least, location. The mansion is built of pine. It contains two stories and is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet wide, having a piazza that is supported by sixteen square columns which are twenty-five feet in height. The width of the piazza is fifteen feet, having a balustrade of pleasing design around it; and in the center of the roof is a circular observatory from which a wonderful view of the Potomac may be had. The roof contains several dormer windows. There are six rooms on the ground floor and on entering the passage way that leads from east to west through it you are at once impressed with its wainscoting and large worked cornices which present to the eye the appearance of great solidity. The parlor, library and breakfast room are on the south side of the hall; while to the north are the reception room, parlor, and drawing room. All of the rooms are what you would expect, "tasteful and charming, yet simple." An exquisitely wrought chimney-piece from the finest Sienite marbles in Italy was presented to Washington for his Mount Vernon home by Mr. Vaughan, of London. Upon three tablets of the frieze are pleasing pastoral scenes, so fitting for this rural home. We were much impressed by a picture of Washington seen here. How much more inspiring is a noble human countenance than the grandest natural scenery. Any one seeing a crowd of men in which Washington is one of the number will at once ask, "Whose is the distinguished form towering above the throng, a figure of superb strength and perfect symmetry? He at once receives that hearty admiration which youth and age alike bestow on a man who so forcibly illustrates and embellishes manhood. No one finds cause of regret for lavishing it, for that finely formed intellectual head held a clear, vigorous brain; those fine blue eyes look from the depths of a nature at once frank and noble; and in that broad chest beat a heart filled with the love of freedom, country and his fellow man." The spirit of the boy pulsating with youth's warm blood who carved his name on the west side of the Natural Bridge, where it remained alone for nearly three-fourths of a century--that same indomitable spirit rose high above the treacherous rocks of fear, where it shone on the troubled sea of political injustice, a beacon light to the venturesome mariners, until they were landed safely upon the shore of Freedom.