"Deeply do I regret, my dear son," said she, "to disappoint you in a wish you have so near at heart: but I find I cannot bring myself to give you up yet; for, young as you are, your aid and counsel have already become to me of the greatest service and comfort; and these little fatherless ones, now weeping around you, have learned to look up to you as their protector and guide. You know too little of the ways of the world, and are too young and inexperienced, to go forth to endure its hardships, and battle with its temptations, that lie in wait on every side to entrap the unwary, and lead them down to destruction. Without you, our home would be lonely indeed: then, for your mother's sake, and for the sake of these little ones, give up your darling scheme, for the present at least, that we may all be happy at home once more together." Thus entreated, what could he do but yield consent to the wishes of a loving and prudent mother, and remain at home? where, in a few days, his noble self-denial was rewarded with a sweet contentment of mind that he could never have known had he left the dear ones in sorrow behind him, and gone forth to spend months and years upon the billows of the lonely seas. Surely a kind Heaven so ordered that the welfare and happiness of us Americans, and, it may be, that of the whole world, should be made to depend upon the promptings of a mother's love; for had the boy Washington realized this early dream, and gone forth in that gallant ship, he might have perished in the stormy deep, and we had never known the name we now love so much to praise and venerate. Or, by his distinguished abilities, he might have risen to become in time the Lord High Admiral of the British Navy; and, instead of being set apart to the salvation of his native land, might have been made an instrument to its destruction, impossible as such an event may now appear to us, with our knowledge of the glorious work he did perform when in the fulness of his strength and years, and accustomed as we are to behold in him our model of all that is great and virtuous in mankind. IV. "RULES OF BEHAVIOR."