The little folks will not, I hope, suffer their admiration and respect for our young hero to be lessened in the least, if I tell them, that, like the rest of mankind who came within the magic circle of those bewitching charms, he was first surprised into admiration, and then led, whether or no, at a single step, into the enchanted realms of love. You have seen, how that, in his boyhood, he wrote broken-hearted verses to his Lowland Beauty; and how that, two or three years before, he had nearly yielded himself captive to the beautiful Miss Phillipps: which ought to prove to the satisfaction of all reasonable minds, that Washington, like other men, had a heart of real human flesh, that now and then gave him not a little trouble, despite that grave and dignified reserve which hung about him like a spell, and, even at that early age, was something to many quite overawing. The dinner, that had at first, in his hurry, seemed so long in coming on, seemed now quite as fast in going off. Not that I would have you suppose by this, that he thought the guests were showing any indecent haste to make way with the dishes that were set before them without number, and heaped up without measure, on Mr. Chamberlin's ample board. On the contrary, they partook of the good things of the table with a well-bred slowness, that would have been beyond his endurance to bear, had Mars been thundering with his iron fist at the gates of his fortress. But as it was Cupid, only tapping with his rosy knuckles at the casement of his heart, that dinner seemed no longer to him than, no, not half so long indeed as, the shortest snack he had ever eaten on horseback in the hurry of a forced march. The dinner over, Washington seemed in no haste to depart. The trusty Bishop, knowing well what a punctual man his master always was, had appeared, according to orders, with the horses; and was plainly enough to be seen from the parlor window, had any one cared to look that way, patiently waiting with them in the pleasant shade of an apple-tree. The fiery white charger soon began to paw the ground, impatient at his master's unwonted tardiness; but no rider came. Bishop Braddock shifted his place once, twice, thrice, to keep himself and horses in the shade of the apple-tree; but still his master lingered: and the ivory grin that settled by degrees on his ebony mug showed that he had a sly suspicion of what was going on in the house. The afternoon sped away as if old Time, all of a sudden forgetting his rheumatism, had reached sunset at a single stride. Of course, they would not suffer him to depart at this late hour: so Bishop was ordered to restable the horses, and make himself easy and snug for the night with the colored folks down at their quarters. The next morning, the sun was hours on his journey to the west, before our love-smitten hero was on his way to Williamsburg.