Page:Boissonnas, Un Vaincu, English, 1875.djvu/23

 usual entertainment would be resumed.

Captain Lee took his responsibility as an educator very seriously. His eldest, son, Custis, followed him one winter day for a long walk in the snow. His hand was nestled in his father’s hand, but gradually his hand slipped out and the child walked behind. After a few moments, the Captain looked back and saw Custis, holding himself straight, head high, trying to imitate all his father’s movements. The child was making great efforts to lay his small feet exactly in the long footprints of the Captain. “When I saw this,” said the General, “I said to myself, ‘It behooves me to walk very straight, when this fellow is already following in my tracks.”

Three sons and four daughters were born in Arlington. They all received the same care and were enveloped in the same tenderness. Their father was their only professor for riding and swimming. He remained their most intimate friend, and day after day knew how to adjust his teaching and advice to their age.

We will end our quotations with a few lines from a letter written to his eldest son, becoming a young man.

After a few precepts such as : “Never do wrong to gain or keep a friend. Whoever would give himself for that price, would not be worth the sacrifice you would make for him… don’t appear different than you are…” he adds, “As for the feeling of duty, let me give you an example : One day almost a hundred years ago, the sky became so dark that the