Your father received a
letter to-day from your aunt, which put him in a terrible flutter:--he
immediately ordered his carriage and directed us to attend him. He met
your aunt at a tavern somewhere away back, and she told him that the
gentleman who used to come to our house so much once, had contrived to
carry you off from the place where you lived with her; so your father
concluded to send you to your uncle's in Carolina, and said that I must
go with you. And to tell you the truth, Miss, I was not displeased with
it; for your father has grown so sour of late, that we have little peace
in the house.

"By this I found that my fate was fixed, and I gave myself up for some
time to unavailing sorrow. The maid informed me that my mother was well,
which was one sweet consolation among my many troubles; but she knew
nothing of my father's late conduct.

"The next morning we proceeded, and I was hurried on by rapid stages to
the Chesapeak, where, with the maid and one man servant, I was put on
board a packet for Charleston, at which place we arrived in due time.

"My uncle and his family received me with much tenderness: the servant
delivered a package of letters to my uncle from my father. The carriage
with one servant (the driver) had returned from the Chesapeak to
Connecticut.

"My father had but one brother and two sisters, of which my uncle here
is the youngest. One of my aunts, the old maid, who was my _protectress_
at the old mansion, you have seen at my father's. The other was the
mother of Alfred:--she married very young, to a gentleman in Hartford,
of the name of Wilmot, who fell before the walls of Louisburg, in the
old French war. My aunt did not long survive him;--her health, which had
been for some time declining, received so serious a shock by this
catastrophe, that she died a few months after the melancholy tidings
arrived, leaving Alfred, their only child, then an infant, to the
protection of his relations, who as soon as he arrived at a suitable
age, placed him at school.

"My grandfather, who had the principal management of Mr. Wilmot's
estate, sent my uncle, who was then young and unmarried, to Hartford,
for the purpose of transacting the necessary business. Here he became
acquainted with a young lady, eminent for beauty and loveliness, but
without fortune, the daughter of a poor mechanic. As soon as my
grandfather was informed of this attachment, he, in a very peremptory
manner, ordered my uncle to bre