times of life. I may say, also, that I was become more grave than most of my years, and was curious to see Williamsburg, where lived the king's governor, and something beyond our plantation.
I remember that George Fairfax insisted once that no action ever grew out of only one motive, and, as I see, there were several made me willing to leave my home. Thus when Lawrence talked to me of his wars, and of his friends the Fairfaxes, and of how I must also soon visit him at Mount Vernon, I readily agreed to his wishes. It was hard to part with Betty, who looked like me until I had the smallpox, and with my dear brother Jack; but I was eager, as the day came, to see the outside world, and I rode away very content, on a gray mare with one black fore foot, beside Augustine, and my man Peter after us.
It was a long ride across the neck and down to Pope's Creek on the Potomac, and I was a tired lad when we rode at evening up to the door of the house of Wakefield, where I was born eleven years before.
Here began a new life for me. Anne Aylett, Mrs. Augustine Washington, was a kind woman, very orderly in her ways, and
