contributions to the population of a new colony.

Between the children of Pierre and Catharine the most charming harmony
prevailed; they grew up as one family, a pattern of affection and
early friendship. Though different in tempers and dispositions, Hector
Maxwell, the eldest son of the Scottish soldier, and his cousin, young
Louis Perron, were greatly attached: they, with the young Catharine
and Mathilde, formed a little coterie of inseparables; their
amusements, tastes, pursuits, occupations, all blended and harmonized
delightfully; there were none of those little envyings and bickerings
among them that pave the way to strife and disunion in after-life.

Catharine Maxwell and her cousin Louis were more like brother and
sister than Hector and Catharine; but Mathilde was gentle and
dove-like, and formed a contrast to the gravity of Hector and the
vivacity of Louis and Catharine.

Hector and Louis were fourteen--strong, vigorous, industrious, and
hardy, both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of
twelve. It is not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with
the two lads and Catharine. With the gaiety and _naivete_ of the
Frenchwoman, Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action,
a thoughtful and well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have
repaid the care of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew
nothing beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired
from her father's teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had
gained when in the army, having been taught by his colonel's son, a
lad of twelve years of age, who had taken a great fancy to him, and
had at parting given him a few of his school-books, among which was a
Testament without cover or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman