Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal | Page 2

powers were almost, if not entirely uncultivated; still, she possessed sufficient strength of character to enable her to form a deep, ardent, and permanent attachment.
The young stranger gazed upon her with admiring eyes, and soon began to whisper in her ear the flattering tale of love. This, of course, her parents could not approve. What! give their darling to a stranger? Never, no, never. What could they do without her? Grieved that their kindness should have been thus returned, they bade him go his way, and leave their child in peace. He did go, but like a thief he returned. In the darkness of midnight he stole to her chamber, and bore away from the home of her childhood, "a father's joy, a mother's pride."
Who can tell the anguish of their souls when they entered that deserted chamber? How desolate their lonely hearthstone! How dark the home where her presence had scattered rainbow hues! A terrible blow it was to Capt. Willard; a very bitter thing thus to have his cherished plans frustrated, his brightest hopes destroyed; to see the very sun of his existence go down at midday in clouds and darkness. Yes, to the stern father this sad event brought bitter, bitter grief. But to the mother--that tender, affectionate mother, it was death. Yea, more than death, for reason, at the first shock, reeled and tottered on its throne; then, as days and weeks passed by, and still the loved one did not return, when every effort to find her had been made in vain, then, the dread certainty settled down upon her soul that her child was lost to her forever. Hope, gave place to despair, and she became, from that time, a raving maniac. At length death came to her relief, and her husband was left alone.
Six weary years passed over the lonely man, and then he rejoiced in the intelligence that his child was still living with her husband at St. John's. He immediately wrote to her imploring her to return to her old home, and with the light of her presence dispel the gloom of his dwelling. Accordingly she left St. John's, and in company with her husband returned to her father. I was then about a year and a half old, but I have so often heard these facts related by my father and grandfather, they are indelibly impressed on my mind, and will never be erased from my memory.
My mother now thought her trouble at an end, that in future she should enjoy the happiness she once anticipated. But, alas for all human prospects! Ere one short month had passed, difficulties arose in consequence of the difference in their religious opinions. Capt. Willard was a firm Protestant, while my father was quite as firm in his belief of the principles of the Roman Catholics. "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" They parted in anger, and my father again became a wanderer, leaving his wife and child with his father-in-law. But my mother was a faithful, devoted wife. Her husband was her heart's chosen idol whom she loved too well to think of being separated from. She therefore left her father's house, with all its luxuries and enjoyments, to follow the fortunes of one, who was certainly unworthy of the pure affection thus lavished upon him. As her health had been delicate for the last two years, she concluded to leave me with her father for a short time, intending to send for me, as soon as she was in a situation to take care of me. But this was not to be. Death called her away, and I saw my mother no more till her corpse was brought back, and buried in her father's garden.
Two years I remained with my grandfather, and from him, I received the most affectionate and devoted attention. My father at length opened a saloon, for the sale of porter, and hired a black woman to do his work. He then came for me. My grandfather entreated that I might be allowed to remain. Well he knew that my father was not the man to be entrusted with the care of a child--that a Porter House was no place for me, for he was quite sure that stronger liquors than porter were there drank and sold. In fact, it was said, that my father was himself a living evidence of this. But it is of a parent I am speaking, and, whatever failings the world may have seen in him, to me he was a kind and tender father. The years I spent with him were the happiest of my life. On memory's page they stand out in bold relief, strikingly contrasting with the wretchedness of my after life. And though I cannot forget that his