"They had not yet decided whether they would return when these funds should arrive, or go on to the place for which they had started, as their companions were anxious to have them do.
"She expressed entire indifference as to going on or returning; her children being gone, she did not care where she was. The terrified, imploring look of her darling Maggie, as she was dashed from them on her frail support, amid the merciless buffetings and boiling surges of the furious waves—her eyes straining to catch a glimpse of them, and her dear little arms extended so pitifully to them for protection—haunted the imagination of the broken-hearted mother, and, she assured me, had not been absent from her thoughts one moment since, sleeping or waking.
"My sincere and fervent sympathy seemed to afford her some comfort, and it was freely and heartily offered; for I was myself, as I have hinted, at that time a mourner over the recent loss of the kindest and best of fathers, whose only daughter and cherished pet I had ever been. His death, when I was yet but a child in years, was followed by severe pecuniary reverses, which had driven us from our home and involved our hitherto affluent and most happy family in difficulties and poverty. In my ignorance of sorrow and of the religion which alone can sustain the afflicted, I had thought there could be none so unhappy and unfortunate as ourselves. I could not then believe the truth of the assurance, which was the solace of my invalid mother, that 'The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth.' I could not see the tender mercy and love that had inflicted this cruel bereavement and surrounded our helpless family with such calamities, in the clear light with which his grace afterward made it manifest to me.
"But here was an instance far more inscrutable and heart-rending. Strangers in a strange land; the broad Atlantic rolling between them and every heart upon which they had any special claim for sympathy; their children relentlessly torn from them; and all their worldly substance buried in the consuming deep! Why had they thus been singled out as marks for such a shower of fatal arrows? I pondered much upon it, and my eyes were opened to see the mercies that had been mingled with the chastisements of a loving Father in our own case. We had numerous and kind friends, whose sympathy had poured balm upon our wounded spirits, and whose generous hands had been opened to aid us in our necessities. Of these, the dear friends with whom I was then staying had been among the first, and their assistance and advice at that dark period of my life have ever been remembered with gratitude.
"While my new acquaintances remained in Montreal, I passed much time with poor Maggie, to the entire satisfaction of my friends, to whom I communicated the sorrowful story on the day I heard it, and whose active sympathy contributed much toward the relief and comfort of the youthful mourners.
"When they at length received the expected funds from Scotland, they decided to comply with the wishes of their surviving fellow-sufferers in exile and affliction, by accompanying them, according to their original intention, to Upper Canada. Our parting was very affecting. They had learned to look upon my friends as kind benefactors, while they regarded me as a sister. I felt very lonely after they were gone; but the lesson I had learned from my intercourse with them was never forgotten. Their united and unquestioning acquiescence with the will of God, and the persistent patience with which every action of their daily lives expressed, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,' made a permanent impression on my mind.
"At the invitation and by the advice of my friends, I remained much longer in Montreal than I at first intended, in order to learn the French language, and to acquire the knowledge of some other branches, for which superior facilities were presented by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, and which were necessary to advance my education sufficiently to fit me for teaching, the object I then had in view.
"Nearly a year had passed since our parting with the Macphersons, when some friends from Vermont arrived on a visit to those with whom I was staying. I was requested, in consequence of the indisposition of the lady of the house, to accompany them to several places of interest in the city, which they wished to see. Among these was the house of the 'Gray Nuns,' a sisterhood devoted to the care of a great number of foundlings. In passing through the rooms appropriated to the children, I was particularly attracted by the face and attitude of a delicate-looking little girl of surprising beauty, who was sitting on the floor and devoting herself to the care and amusement of a little boy about two years old, whose beauty equalled her own, though entirely different in character. She was fair as a lily; her large blue eyes were shaded by drooping lids and long silken lashes, which imparted a touching pensiveness to their expression, while her golden hair floated in shining curls to her shoulders. The little boy's complexion was dark and clear, his black eyes soft and brilliant. The startled timidity combined with searching earnestness in their expression as he raised them to mine and encountered my admiring gaze, (for I was always passionately fond of children,) thrilled my very soul, and, turning to the good sister who was conducting us, I exclaimed with enthusiasm, pointing to them,
"'What beautiful children!'
"'Yes,' she said with fond pride, and evidently flattered by our notice of her pets, 'they are indeed beautiful; and alas! their misfortunes are as striking as their beauty. They belonged to a Scotch family on board a vessel that was wrecked off Newfoundland, and their parents perished. Mr. Ferguson, a Scotch gentleman in very infirm health, from our city, was visiting some friends in that vicinity, and happened to be passing in a carriage with one of them on the evening of the storm and the shipwreck, when, noticing the torches and bustle on the shore, they stopped to inquire the cause and to render assistance, if possible, to those who were washed ashore. This little girl had been lashed to a plank, and, by a wonderful providence, when the baby was borne away from his mother, the same wave carried him within reach of his little sister, who seized and clung to him as with a dying grasp, until she was snatched insensible by Mr. Ferguson from the top of a wave which rolled far up on the shore, and would have hurried them back in its receding surf but for a powerful effort on his part, which had nearly cost him his life; for he received injuries in the attempt, by severe sprains and otherwise, that rendered him almost helpless for some weeks. His friend took the children and himself in the carriage to his residence, over two miles distant—it being the nearest house on that unfrequented part of the coast, with the exception of some fishermen's huts at some distance in the opposite direction. Mr. Ferguson was unable to leave his bed for some weeks. Unfortunately, the physician of that neighborhood was absent on a visit to a distant city.