her through the woods to a place of safety, and there her child was
born.

It was over the American frontier, and it was long before she could
write to her husband. She never knew what became of her letter, but
the hunter friend, Piers Dayman, showed her an American paper which
mentioned Captain Trevor among the officers killed in their attack.
Dayman was devoted to her, and insisted on marrying her, and bringing
up her daughter as his own. I fancy she was a woman of gentle
passive temper, and had been crushed and terrified by all she had
gone through, so as to have little instinct left but that of clinging
to the protector who had taken her up when she had lost everything
else; and she married him. Nor did Hester guess till that very day
that Piers Dayman was not her father!

There were other children, sons who have given themselves to hunting
and trapping in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory; but Hester
remained the only daughter, and they educated her well, sending her
to a convent at Montreal, where she learnt a good many
accomplishments. They were not Roman Catholics; but it was the only
way of getting an education.

Dayman must have been a warm-hearted, tenderly affectionate person.
Hester loved him very much. But he had lived a wild sportsman's life,
and never was happy at rest. They changed home often; and at last he
was snowed up and frozen to death, with one of his boys, on a bear
hunting expedition.

Not very long after, Hester married this sturdy American, Joel Lea,
who had bought some land on the Canadian side of the border, and her