ouse, and she invited me to come and see her at her
own, but I knew that my mother would not permit me, so I did not ask.
As the colonel was my father's superior officer, all attempts to break
off my intimacy with her which my mother made, were unavailing, and I
passed as usual all my time in any other house except my home.

I have now to record but two more beatings. The reader may think that I
have recorded enough already, but as these were the two last, and they
were peculiar, I must beg him to allow me so to do. The first beating
was given me for the following cause: A very gentlemanlike young officer
in the regiment was very particular in his attentions to me. I liked
his company, but my thoughts had never been directed towards marriage,
for I was too childish and innocent. One morning it appeared that he
proposed to my father, who immediately gave his consent, provided that I
was agreeable, and this he ventured to do without consulting my mother.
Perhaps he thought it a good opportunity to remove me from my mother's
persecution. At all events when he made known to her what he had done,
and requested her to sound me on the subject, she was in no pleasant
humour. When she did so, my reply was (he being a very
dark-complexioned man, although well-featured), "Non, maman, je ne veux
pas. Il est trop noir."

To my astonishment, my mother flew at me, and I received such an
avalanche of boxes on the ears for this reply, that I was glad to make
my escape as fast as I could, and locked myself up in my own room. Now
I really believe that I was almost a single instance of a young lady
having her ears well boxed for refusing to marry a man that she did not
care for--but such was my fate.

The treatment I received in this instance got wind in the barracks, and
my cause was warmly taken up by every one. Finding myself thus
supported, I one day ventured to refuse to do a very menial and
unpleasant office, and for this refusal I received the second beating.
It was the last certainly, but it was the most severe, for my mother
caught up a hearth-brush, and struck me for several minutes such a
succession of severe blows, that my face was so disfigured that I was
hardly to be recognised, my head cut open in several places, and the
blood pouring down me in every direction. At last she left me for dead
on the floor. After a time I recovered my recollection, and when I did
so, I sprang away from the servants who had been sup