Harper's Round Table, September 15, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

The next few weeks worked a great and serious change in George. It was the first time he had seen death since he was ten years old, when his father died. That had made a great impression on him at the time, but the feelings of a child of ten and a youth of sixteen are very different. He had loved little Mildred dearly, and the child's death was a deep sorrow to him. The grief of his brother and sister was piteous. As the case often is, the father was the more overwhelmed, and the poor mother had to stifle her own grief to help her husband. George could not but love and admire his sister the more when he saw her calm fortitude, and how, inspired by love for her husband, she bore bravely the loss of her only child. Both Madam Washington and Betty had come to Mount Vernon the day of little Mildred's death. Madam Washington was obliged to return after a few days to her younger children, but George and Betty remained.
For George is the heir now, said Laurence, with a sad smile, and he must learn to manage what will one day be his own.
Oh, brother, burst out George, with strange violence, do you believe I wanted this place at the price of your child's life? I would give it all, twenty times over, to have her back!
If I had thought you coveted it, I should never have made you my heir, was Laurence's reply to this.
Never was there a kinder or more helpful soul than Betty, now a tall and beautiful girl of fourteen. Mrs. Washington's health was much shattered by this last and greatest sorrow, and Laurence, who had always been of a delicate constitution, became every day more feeble. George attended him assiduously, rarely leaving him. He persuaded his brother to ride out and take some interest in the place. He read to Laurence of evenings in the library, and tried to interest him with accounts of the new regions in which the younger brother had spent so many months. Nothing could ever make Laurence Washington a happy man again.