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 FREDERICKTON,
a distance of a _hundred miles_, up the river of ST. JOHN; and, which
was worse, the artillery were 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 persons 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.

96. 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) 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 servant of all work_ (and hard work it was), at
_five pounds a year_, in the house of a CAPTAIN BRISAC; and, without
hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands _the whole
of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken_!

97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings were? Need I tell
kind-hearted English parents what effect