The great trials of her life were henceforth to come through her crowning glory and pride. Her splendid boy, only fifteen years old, entered, as surveyor to Lord Fairfax, a life of hardship and peril, exposed to hourly danger from the Indians, and to the rigors of inclement winters. The eaglet had flown from the nest, never to return. Henceforth her straining eyes might strive to follow--they could never recall him. [Illustration: Mrs. Washington persuades George not to go to Sea.] The lands to be surveyed lay in the wilderness beyond the Blue Ridge. There the boy of sixteen matched himself against fatigue, danger, and privations of every kind, and found himself equal to them all. He became familiar with the frontier people--the Indians and settlers. There he unconsciously trained himself for his future career. Just at this time, when Fate sent him into the wilderness as preparation for the stern life ordained for him, the gentle god of Love was experimenting with his virgin heart. Among the yellow papers, which were tied in bundles and preserved in the deep drawers of the old secretary at "Pine Grove," behold the following acrostic, dated 1747, when the lad was fifteen:-- "From your bright sparkling eyes I was undone. Rays you have--more transparent than ye Sun Amidst its Glory in ye Rising Day. None can you equal in y^r bright array. Constant in y^r Calm, Unspotted Mind-- Equal toe all, will toe none Prove kind. Soe knowing, seldom One soe young you'll find." Who was Frances? Was she responsible for the "hurt of the heart uncurable," of which he wrote a few months later? Alas, we shall never know! Her Rays were all dimmed before Parson Weems appeared to take notes and print them. At least we have this fragment of boyhood love, and can enrol her name as the _first_ of his five sweethearts. There is also a relic of his work for Lord Fairfax. Underneath the veranda at Capon Springs in West Virginia lies the trunk of one of the trees that the young surveyor marked with his hatchet. At least, it was there ten years ago! CHAPTER XVI BETTY WASHINGTON, AND WEDDINGS IN OLD VIRGINIA