Page:The youth of Washington (1910).djvu/88

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XI

In this pleasant company of William Fairfax and his wife, and my friend George William, his son, I saw with profit something of the ways and manners of persons of consideration, and, being by nature observant, profited accordingly. Indeed, the Lord Fairfax more than once commended the matter to my attention, saying that good and fitting manners to men of all classes would often obtain what could not be otherwise as easily had. I do not now recall the phrase he used, but, if I recollect, it was out of a letter written to Sir Philip Sidney by his father.

I find it curious to recall how at this time I appeared to others, and, concerning this, I have found a letter addressed by Lord Fairfax to my mother. In one of her sudden and often brief ambitions for me, she desired to know of his lordship