father had reared his children, the studied elegance which had
characterised my mother's dress and habitation, and the hospitality,
which was now marked by the ungrateful epithet of prodigal luxuriance,
but which had evinced the open liberality of my father's heart.

At this period my brother William died. He was only six years of age,
but a promising and most lovely infant. His sudden death, in consequence
of the measles, nearly deprived my mother of her senses. She was deeply
affected; but she found, after a period of time, that consolation which,
springing from the bosom of an amiable friend, doubly solaced her
afflictions. This female was one of the most estimable of her sex; she
had been the widow of Sir Charles Erskine, and was then the wife of a
respectable medical man who resided at Bristol.

In the society of Lady Erskine my mother gradually recovered her
serenity of mind, or rather found it soften into a religious
resignation. But the event of her domestic loss by death was less
painful than that which she felt in the alienation of my father's
affections. She frequently heard that he resided in America with his
mistress, till, at the expiration of another year, she received a
summons to meet him in London.

Language would but feebly describe the varying emotions which struggled
in her bosom. At this interesting era she was preparing to encounter the
freezing scorn, or the contrite glances, of either an estranged or a
repentant husband; in either case her situation was replete with
anticipated chagrin, for she loved him too tenderly not to participate
even in the anguish of his compunction. His letter, which was coldly
civil, requested particularly that the children might be the companions
of her journey. We departed for the metropolis.