My residence under his hospitable roof increased my esteem for his
character, which my long experience of six-and-twenty years has never
diminished. Mrs. Reid treated me with maternal kindness; and in their
amiable family-circle my bruised heart recovered its peace, and my
spirits their healthy tone. The kindly disposition of my host in all
his domestic relations, his cheerful activity, pure morality, and
unaffected piety, presented an admirable example to a young man left
without guidance in a distant colony. But I did not at that time think
about becoming his son-in-law, though I had been several months
domesticated in his family, till the alacrity displayed by his eldest
daughter in hastening to the assistance of a wounded neighbour, through
the unknown intricacies of a Canadian forest, led me to consider her
character in a new and endearing point of view.

A Mr. G. and his family had just commenced a settlement, about four
miles east of Mr. Reid's clearing, when, early one morning, his eldest
son, a lad of twelve or thirteen, with a face full of trouble ran to
tell us "that his father had nearly cut his foot off with an axe while
chopping logs to build his house, that his mother could not stop the
bleeding, and that they were afraid he would bleed to death."

Mr. Reid's eldest daughter immediately volunteered to return with the
boy, to render what assistance she could. Without any thought of
fatigue, or danger, or trial to her feelings, she set out instantly
with the proper bandages. Mr. Reid, his sons, and myself were all
chopping in the woods when the lad came, so that Mary followed the
spontaneous impulse of her own heart; but as soon as we heard what had
happened, her father sent over the river for our nearest neighbour, a
stout canny Scotchman, to assist us in carrying the wounded man through
the woods to his (Mr. Reid's) house.