"Light-horse Harry" Lee was always a great favorite in the Washington family. He was, perhaps, the only person outside of it "never under the influence"--according to Irving--"of that reverential awe" which Washington is said to have inspired. His summer home "Chatham" adjoined Mary Washington's Stafford farm; he was often in Fredericksburg at the "Indian Queen" banquets. Nobody could take such liberties with the great man. The son of his "Lowland Beauty" stepped right into the place she had left vacant. The general one day asked "Light-horse Harry" if he knew where he could get a good pair of carriage horses. "I have a fine pair, general--but _you_ can't get them." "Why not?" "Because," said the saucy young soldier, "you will never pay more than half price for anything, and I must have full price for my horses." Silence--broken at last by the bantering laugh of a pet parrot caged near them. The general took the assault upon his dignity in great good part. "Ah, Lee, you are a funny fellow!" said he; "even the birds laugh at you!" "But," adds Irving, "hearty laughter was rare with Washington. The sudden explosions we read of were the result of some ludicrous surprise." Still we do read of this rare laughter--this willing yielding to merriment--on the occasions of his visits to his mother. All of which goes to prove, first, that Washington did not, as has been charged, neglect to visit her during the four intervening years between the declaration of peace and his own appointment to the Presidency, and, secondly, that these were happy visits, notwithstanding his mother's age and infirmities--happy for her, otherwise, they could not have been happy for him. It is not the purpose of the compiler of this story of Mary Washington and her times to answer all of the witless charges that thoughtless--we will not say malignant--persons have made regarding Washington's relations with his mother; but one of these stories found its way to the columns of a newspaper, and perhaps we may check its echo, now going on from lip to lip, to the effect that after he became President, Washington _denied_ to his mother a home in his temporary residence. He entered that residence late in the spring of 1789. His mother died in August of that year. She was ill when he parted from her, and he was prostrated for many weeks with a malignant carbuncle. He was not recovered when she died; he could not go to her. It is not possible that she wished to exchange the repose of her own home and the ministrations of her loved physician and only daughter for the stirring life of a noisy metropolis.