necessary that he should leave school at the age of sixteen to earn a
living. At seventeen he was appointed by Lord Fairfax surveyor of his
vast estates in Virginia, and for a time he resided with his lordship at
Greenway Court. There can be little doubt that it was partly through the
training in manners which Washington gained from the old French maxims
that he thus made headway against circumstances, and gained the
friendship of the highly-educated and powerful Fairfax family.

It should be mentioned, however, that young Washington's head was not in
the least turned by this intimacy with the aristocracy. He wrote letters
to his former playmates in which no snobbish line is discoverable. He
writes to his "Dear friend Robin": "My place of residence is at present
at his lordship's where I might, was my heart disengaged, pass my time
very pleasantly, as there's a very agreeable young lady lives in the
same house (Col. George Fairfax's wife's sister). But as that's only
adding fuel to fire, it makes me the more uneasy, for by often and
unavoidably being in company with her revives my former passion for your
Lowland beauty; whereas, was I to live more retired from young women, I
might eleviate in some measure my sorrows by burying that chaste and
troublesome passion in the grave of oblivion or etearnall forgetfulness,
for as I am very well assured, that's the only antidote or remedy that I
ever shall be relieved by or only recess that can administer any cure or
help to me, as I am well convinced, was I ever to attempt anything, I
should only get a denial which would be only adding grief to
uneasiness."

The young lady at Greenway Court was Mary Gary, and the Lowland beauty
was Betsy Fauntleroy, whose hand Washington twice sought, but who became
the wife of the Hon. Thomas Adams. While travelling on his surveys,
often among the red men, the youth sometimes gives vent to his feelings