were assisted by
numerous servants chosen from the warm-hearted people who had left
their own Green Isle to find a home in this wilderness.

Amidst such scenes and the duties of her station we may suppose that
Mrs. Talbot, a lady who could not but have relinquished many comforts
in her native land for this rude life of the forest, found sufficient
resource to quell the regrets of many fond memories of the home and
friends she had left behind, and to reconcile her to the fortunes of
her husband, to whom, as we shall see, she was devoted with an ardor
that no hardship or danger could abate.

Being the dispenser of her husband's hospitality,--the bread-giver,
in the old Saxon phrase,--the frequent companion of his pastime, and
the bountiful friend, not only of the families whose cottages threw
up their smoke within view of her dwelling, but of all who came and
went on the occasions of business or pleasure in the common
intercourse of the frontier, we may conceive the sentiment of respect
and attachment she inspired in this insulated district, and the
service she was thus enabled to command.

This is but a fancy picture, it is true, of the home of Talbot,
which, for want of authentic elements of description, I am forced to
draw. It is suggested by the few scattered glimpses we get in the
records of his position and circumstances, and may, I think, be
received at least as near the truth in its general aspect and
characteristic features.

He was undoubtedly a bold, enterprising man,--impetuous, passionate,
and harsh, as the incidents of his story show. He was, most probably,
a soldier trained to the profession, and may have served abroad, as
nearly all gentlemen of that period were accustomed to do. That he
was an ardent and uncompromising partisan of the Proprietary in the
dissensions of the Province seems to be evident. I suppose him, also,
to have been warm-hearted, proud in spirit, and hasty in temper,--a
man to be loved or hated by friend or foe with equal intensity. It is
material to add to this sketch of him, that he was a Roman
Catholic,--as we have record proof that all the Deputy Governors
named in the recent commission were, I believe, without
exception,--and that he was doubtless imbued with the dislike and
indignation which naturally fired the gentlemen of his faith against
those who were supposed to be plotting the overthrow of the Proprietary
government, by exciting religious prejudice against the Baltimo