timidity which had divided her from a husband's bosom, the natural
fondness which had bound her to her children; for while her heart bled
with sorrow and palpitated with apprehension, the dreadful secret was
unfolded, and the cause of my father's silence was discovered to be a
new attachment--a mistress, whose resisting nerves could brave the
stormy ocean, and who had consented to remain two years with him in the
frozen wilds of America.

This intelligence nearly annihilated my mother, whose mind, though not
strongly organised, was tenderly susceptible. She resigned herself to
grief. I was then at an age to feel and to participate in her sorrows. I
often wept to see her weep; I tried all my little skill to soothe her,
but in vain; the first shock was followed by calamities of a different
nature. The scheme in which my father had embarked his fortune failed,
the Indians rose in a body, burnt his settlement, murdered many of his
people, and turned the produce of their toil adrift on the wide and
merciless ocean. The noble patrons of his plan deceived him in their
assurances of marine protection, and the island of promise presented a
scene of barbarous desolation. This misfortune was rapidly followed by
other commercial losses; and to complete the vexations which pressed
heavily on my mother, her rash husband gave a bill of sale of his whole
property, by the authority of which we were obliged to quit our home,
and to endure those accumulated vicissitudes for which there appeared
no remedy.

It was at this period of trial that my mother was enabled to prove, by
that unerring touchstone, adversity, who were her real and disinterested
friends. Many, with affected commiseration, dropped a tear--or rather
seemed to drop one--on the disappointments of our family; while others,
with a malignant triumph, condemned the expensive style in which my