stammering and blushing, until the speaker said, “Sit down, Mr. Washington; your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.”  It is an old story, and as graceful as it is old, but it was all very grateful to Washington, especially as the words of the speaker bodied forth the feelings of Virginia.  Such an atmosphere, filled with deserved respect and praise, was pleasant to begin with, and then he had everything else too.

He not only continued to sit in the House year after year and help to rule Virginia, but he served on the church vestry, and so held in his hands the reins of local government.  He had married a charming woman, simple, straightforward, and sympathetic, free from gossip or pretense, and as capable in practical matters as he was himself.  By right of birth a member of the Virginian aristocracy, he had widened and strengthened his connections through his wife.  A man of handsome property by the death of Lawrence Washington’s daughter, he had become by his marriage one of the richest men of the country.  Acknowledged to be the first soldier on the continent, respected and trusted in public, successful and happy in private life, he had attained before he was thirty to all that Virginia could give of wealth, prosperity, and honor, a fact of which he was well aware, for there never breathed a man more wisely contented than George Washington at this period.

He made his home at Mount Vernon, adding many acres to the estate, and giving to it his best attention.  It is needless to say that he was successful, for that was the ease with everything he undertook.  He loved country life, and he was the best and most prosperous planter in Virginia, which was really a more difficult achievement than the mere statement implies.  Genuinely profitable farming in Virginia was not common, for the general system was a bad one.  A single great staple, easily produced by the reckless exhaustion of land, and varying widely in the annual value of crops, bred improvidence and speculation.  Everything was bought upon long credits, given by the London merchants, and this, too, contributed largely to carelessness and waste.  The chronic state of a planter in a business way was one of debt, and the lack of capital made his conduct of affairs extravagant and loose.  With all his care and method Washington himself was often pinched for ready money, and it was only by his thoroughness and foresight that he prospered and made money while so many of his neighbors struggled with debt and lived on in easy luxury, not knowing what the morrow might bring forth.