"Colonel Fitzmorris, in addition to all these conventional advantages, possessed the act of pleasing in an eminent degree, and was admired and courted by the other sex as the beau ideal of manly beauty and elegance. Doubtless it was these external graces that captivated and won the heart of my mother.
"People wondered that the proud Earl should give his consent to the marriage of his daughter, with a man of moderate fortune and dissipated habits; but she was the child of his old age, the sole fruit of a second marriage; another petted idol of his heart. From a baby she had been used to have her own way, and the doting father could not withstand her passionate appeals to his parental affection, to be allowed to marry the man of her own choice.
"The Earl, in this case, appears reluctantly to have yielded to her wishes; and delayed the marriage until after she had attained her majority; hoping that time and the gaieties of London would divert her affections from my father, and concentrate them upon a more eligible object. She, however, remained firm to her attachment, and their marriage was celebrated with unusual magnificence. A prince of the blood royal gave away the bride, who inherited a fine fortune from her mother, which, I fear, was the sole inducement my father had in making her his wife.
"My poor deceived mother, I have every reason to believe, was passionately fond of her husband; but retiring in her habits, she lacked the art to secure the affection of a man of the world, and such a general lover as Colonel Fitzmorris was known to be.
"She was his legal wife, but not the mistress of his heart. In public he treated her with marked attention and politeness, which he considered due to a woman of her rank; in private she was neglected altogether, or regarded with cool indifference; and having no inclination for the ostentatious show of a life spent in public, my dear mother passed most of her time in the country with her infant sons, at the beautiful seat which had formed a part of her noble dower.
"While she continued to love my father, his conduct must have occasioned her great anguish of mind. A faithful female attendant has since informed me that most of her solitary nights were spent in tears. After every tender feeling had been torn and estranged, and indifference succeeded to love, she, unfortunately, transferred the affections which had never been reciprocated by her faithless partner, to a man who, had she known previous to her ill-starred marriage, would have been worthy of her love.
"General Halstead commanded the brigade in which my father was colonel, and was a constant visitor at the house. He was a man in middle life, with a fine, gentlemanly presence, frank, brave, and independent, had read and travelled much, and could talk well on most subjects. He was very kind to us boys, and we both loved him, for we saw a great deal more of him than of our father, who never kissed or played with us as General Halstead did.
"But to hasten a sad story. General Halstead sought and won the heart my father had trampled and spurned, and my mother eloped with her seducer to France. I have often since wondered how she could leave her two young sons, who were rendered worse than orphans by her rash desertion.