ngton's life at Mount Vernon, his attention to
social duties and pleasures was hardly less important. He aimed to be
a country gentleman of influence, and he knew that he could achieve
this only by doing his share of the bountiful hospitality which was
expected of such a personage. Virginia at that time possessed no large
cities or towns with hotels. When the gentry travelled, they put up
overnight at the houses of other gentry, and thus, in spite of very
restricted means of transportation, the inhabitants of one part of the
country exchanged ideas with those of another. In this way also the
members of the upper class circulated among themselves and acquired
a solidarity which otherwise would hardly have been possible. We are
told that Mount Vernon was always full of guests; some of these being
casual strangers travelling through, and others being invited friends
and acquaintances on a visit. There were frequent balls and parties
when neighbors from far and near joined in some entertainment at the
great mansion. There were the hunt balls which Washington himself
particularly enjoyed, hunting being his favorite sport. Fairfax
County, where Mount Vernon lay, and its neighboring counties, Fauquier
and Prince William, abounded in foxes, and the land was not too
difficult for the hunters, who copied as far as possible the dress
and customs of the foxhunters in England. Possibly there might be a
meeting at Mount Vernon of the local politicians. At least once a year
Washington and his wife--"Lady," as the somewhat florid Virginians
called her--went off to Williamsburg to attend the session of the
House of Burgesses. Washington seldom missed going to the horse-races,
one of the chief functions of the year, not only for jockeys and
sporting men, but for the fashionable world of the aristocracy. Thanks
to his carefulness and honesty in keeping his accounts, we have his
own record of the amounts he spent at cards--never large amounts, nor
indicative of the gamester's passion.

Thus Washington passed the first ten years of his married life. A
stranger meeting him at that time might have little suspected that
here was the future founder of a nation, one who would prove himself
the greatest of Americans, if not the greatest of men. But if you had
spent a day with Washington, and watched him at work, or listened to
his few but decisive words, or seen his benign but forcible smile,
you would have said to yourself--"This man is equal to