but after the compliments were over, she resumed her knitting."

But the marriage was a failure in that there were no children. No doubt
both wanted them, for Washington was fond of young people and many
anecdotes are handed down of his interest in little tots. Some one has
remarked that he was deprived of offspring in order that he might become
the Father of His Country.

Toward those near and dear to her Martha Washington was almost foolishly
affectionate. In one of her letters she tells of a visit "in
Westmoreland whare I spent a weak very agreabley. I carred my little
patt with me and left Jackey at home for a trial to see how well I coud
stay without him though we ware gon but won fortnight I was quite
impatiant to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a
noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. I often fancied he
was sick or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is
impossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when
he comes down."

Any parent who has been absent from home under similar circumstances and
who has imagined the infinite variety of dreadful things that might
befall a loved child will sympathize with the mother's heart--in spite
of the poor spelling!

Patty Custis was an amiable and beautiful girl who when she grew up came
to be called "the dark lady." But she was delicate in health. Some
writers have said that she had consumption, but as her stepfather
repeatedly called it "Fits," I think it is certain that it was some form
of epilepsy. Her parents did everything possible to restore her, but in
vain. Once they took her to Bath, now Berkeley Springs, for several
weeks and the expenses of that journey we find all duly set down by
Colonel Washington in the proper place. As Paul Leicester Ford remarks,
some of the remedies tried savored of quackery. In the diary, for
February 16, 1770, we learn that "Joshua Evans who came here last Night
put an iron Ring upon Patey and went away after Breakfast." Perhaps
Evans failed to make the ring after the old medieval rule from three
nails or screws that had been taken from a disinterred coffin. At any
rate the ring did poor Patty little good and a year later "Mr. Jno.
Johnson who has a nostrum for Fits came here in the afternoon." In the
spring of 1773 the dark lady died.

Her death added considerably to Washington's possessions, but there is
every evidence that he gave no thought to that aspect of th