o verify whether I were the same man. When he found
that I was he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise when I told
him that those tall young men whom he saw around me were the _sons_ of
that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub
on the snow in New Brunswick at day-break in the morning!

From the day that I first spoke to her I never had a thought of her ever
being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her being
transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at once,
to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of the
army as soon as I could. So that this matter was at once settled as
firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six months
my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to Fredericton, a
distance of _a hundred miles_ up the river of St. John; and, which was
worse, the artillery was expected to go off to England a year or two
before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them; and
now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I was
aware that, when she got to that gay place Woolwich, the house of her
father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous people, not the most
select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like, besides,
that she should continue to _work hard_. I had saved _a hundred and
fifty_ guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the
paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of
my own pay. _I sent her all my money_ before she sailed, and wrote to
her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a
lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare the
money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live without
hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce her to
lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before I came
home.

As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad _two
years longer_ than our time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as
she is now[7]) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound.
Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid!
At the end of _four years_, however, home I came, landed at Portsmouth,
and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of poor Lord
Edward FitzGerald, who was then the major of my regiment. I found my
little girl _a s