Mount Vernon was the gift to Colonel Washington from his elder and bachelor brother Lawrence, and the estate was then one of the finest in Virginia. Washington had made it his occasional residence before his marriage, but it was not until he took his bride there that it became his permanent home. The life that Mrs. Washington led there was similar in outward circumstances to her former position as Mrs. Custis, for she was again the wife of a wealthy, prosperous planter, the centre of the refined society of the county. The sameness of country life was interrupted by her frequent trips with her husband to Williamsburg, where he was for fifteen successive years a member of the Legislature. “How noiseless falls the foot of time That only treads on flowers!” Engaged in fascinating pleasures and congenial pursuits, it did not occur to Mrs. Washington how many summers of fragrantly blooming flowers and ripening fruits had sunk into the unreturning past; nor did she consider that the long term of years in which she had been so happy had meted to others measured drops of bitterness, turning all their harvest-times into chilling, dreary winter. There came to her a time when the pleasant home-life had to be abandoned, and for eight years the harmony of domestic peace was banished. The following letter, the only one preserved of the many addressed to her, is full of interest, and is replete with that thoughtfulness which characterized Washington in his capacity as a husband. Mrs. Washington, shortly before her death, destroyed every testimonial of this kind, unwilling that any other should read these evidences of affection: “PHILADELPHIA, _18th June, 1775_. “MY DEAREST: I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.