at least, they could tell that many had been left behind or
transported to other regions.

Now a desolate wife might be heard calling for her husband. He, alas!
had gone, she knew not whither; or perhaps had fled into the woods of
Acadia, and had now returned to weep over the ashes of their dwelling.

An aged widow was crying out in a querulous, lamentable tone for her
son, whose affectionate toil had supported her for many a. year. He was
not in the crowd of exiles; and what could this aged widow do but sink
down and die? Young men and maidens, whose hearts had been torn asunder
by separation, had hoped, during the voyage, to meet their beloved ones
at its close. Now they began to feel that they were separated forever.
And perhaps a lonesome little girl, a golden-haired child of five years
old, the very picture of our little Alice, was weeping and wailing for
her mother, and found not a soul to give her a kind word.

Oh, how many broken bonds of affection were here! Country lost,--friends
lost,--their rural wealth of cottage, field, and herds all lost
together! Every tie between these poor exiles and the world seemed to be
cut off at once. They must have regretted that they had not died before
their exile; for even the English would not have been so pitiless as
to deny them graves in their native soil. The dead were happy; for they
were not exiles!

While they thus stood upon the wharf, the curiosity and inquisitiveness
of the New England people would naturally lead them into the midst of
the poor Acadians. Prying busybodies thrust their heads into the circle
wherever two or three of the exiles were conversing together. How
puzzled did they look at the outlandish sound of the French tongue!
There were seen the New England women, too. They had just come out of
their warm, safe homes, where everything was regular and comfortable,
and where their husbands and children would be with them at nightfall.
Surely they could pity the wretched wives and mothers of Acadia! Or aid
the sign of the cross which the Acadians continually made upon their
breasts, and which was abhorred by the descendants of the Puritans,--did
that sign exclude all pity?

Among the spectators, too, was the noisy brood of Boston school-boys,
who came running, with laughter and shouts, to gaze at this crowd of
oddly dressed foreigners. At first they danced and capered around them,
full of merriment and mischief. But the despair of the Acadians soon
ha