My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friendship began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, whither I attended him.
My father’s affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to advantage.
I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to me; I had the most implicit deference to his will.
He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father.
He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at that time, ever expected to possess.
My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions.
I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs. Melmoth.
A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving.
In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to Montreal.
I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his.