he only witness of the
marriage, which within a few hours ensued, was an old, weather-beaten
sailor, who had known and loved Lucy from her childhood--Ben Grant. He
accompanied us on shore and to the church. He followed us to the humble
lodgings with which we contrived for the present to be contented, and
devoted himself to Lucy with self-sacrificing, but in one instance,
alas! (as you will soon learn), with mistaken and fatal zeal.

"After much difficulty, I obtained employment from a man in whom I
accidentally recognized an old and valued friend of my father. He had
been in Rio several years, and was actively engaged in trade, and
willingly employed me as a clerk, occasionally despatching me from home
to transact business at a distance. My duties being regular and
profitable, we were soon raised above want, and I was enabled to place
my young wife in a situation of comfort.

"The sweetness of her disposition, the cheerfulness with which she
endured privation, the earnestness with which she strove to make me
happy, were not without effect. I perseveringly rallied from my gloom; I
succeeded in banishing the frown from my brow; and the premature
wrinkles, which her hand would softly sweep away, finally ceased to
return. The few months that I passed with your mother, Gertrude, form a
sweet episode in the memory of my stormy life. I came to love her
much--not as I loved Emily;--that could not be expected--but, as the
solitary flower that bloomed on the grave of all my early hopes, she
cast a fragrance round my path; and her child is not more dear to me,
because a part of myself, than as the memento of the cherished blossom
snatched hastily from my hand and rudely crushed.

"About two months after your birth, my child, and before your eyes had
ever learned to brighten at the sight of your father, who was
necessarily much from home, the business in which I was engaged called
me in the capacity of an agent to a station some distance from Rio. I
had been absent nearly a month, and had written regularly to Lucy,
informing her of all my movements (though I suspect the letters never
reached her), when the neighbourhood in which I was stationed became
infected with a fatal malaria. For the sake of my family I took every
measure to ward off contagion, but failed. I was seized with fever, and
lay for weeks near death. I was cruelly neglected during my illness; for
I had no friends near me, and my slender purse held out little
indu