The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears. While the bridegroom appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold buckles at his knees and on his shoes.
After the ceremony, the bride was taken home in a coach and six, Washington riding beside her, mounted on a splendid horse, and followed by all the gentlemen of the party.
Henry Cabot Lodge (Arranged)
WASHINGTON AND THE CHILDREN
I
There were two joyous little people who went to live with the bride in her new home at Mount Vernon. They were her two children, Jack Custis, six years old, and his sister Patsy, just four years old.
Washington gave them little ponies to ride. He bought fashionably dressed baby dolls for Patsy, silver shoe and knee buckles for Jack, and for both of them toys, gingerbread-figures, sugar-images, and little books with coloured pictures in them. He gave them each a Bible bound in turkey leather with their names printed in gilt letters on the inside covers.
II
Washington loved all children. He always smiled at them. He was specially popular with boys.
When he rode in state to Independence Hall in his cream-coloured coach drawn by six bays, and with postilions and outriders, boys were always at hand to cheer as he drove by. And when he returned to Mount Vernon, there were other boys waiting to welcome him. He could always count on boys, wherever he went, to shout and wave their hats. He used to touch his own hat to them as politely as if they were veterans on parade.