



Produced by Sandra Laythorpe.  HTML version by Al Haines.










LADY HESTER;

OR,

URSULA'S NARRATIVE.


by

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE





CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.     SAULT ST. PIERRE

CHAPTER II.    TREVORSHAM

CHAPTER III.   THE PEERAGE CASE

CHAPTER IV.    SKIMPING'S FARM

CHAPTER V.     SPINNEY LAWN

CHAPTER VI.    THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING

CHAPTER VII.   HUNTING

CHAPTER VIII.  DUCK SHOOTING

CHAPTER IX.    TREVOR'S LEGACY





CHAPTER I.

SAULT ST. PIERRE.


I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any reports
of our strange family history should come down to after generations the
thing may be properly understood.

The old times at Trevorsham seem to me so remote, that I can hardly
believe that we are the same who were so happy then.  Nay, Jaquetta
laughs, and declares that it is not possible to be happier than we have
been since, and Fulk would have me remember that all was not always
smooth even in those days.

Perhaps not--for him, at least, dear fellow, in those latter times; but
when I think of the old home, the worst troubles that rise before me
are those of the back-board and the stocks, French in the school-room,
and Miss Simmonds' "Lady Ursula, think of your position!"

And as to Jaquetta, she was born under a more benignant star.  Nobody
could have put a back-board on her any more than on a kitten.

Our mother had died (oh! how happily for herself!) when Jaquetta was a
baby, and Miss Simmonds most carefully ruled not only over us, but over
Adela Brainerd, my father's ward, who was brought up with us because
she had no other relation in the world.

Besides, my father wished her to marry one of my brothers.  It would
have done very well for either Torwood or Bertram, but unluckily, as it
seemed, neither of them could take to the notion.  She was a dear
little thing, to be sure, and we were all very fond of her; but, as
Bertram said, it would have been like marrying Jaquetta, and Torwood
had other views, to which my father would not then listen.

Then Bertram's regiment was ordered to Canada, and that was the real
cause of it all, though we did not know it till long after.

Bertram was starting out on a sporting expedition with a Canadian
gentleman, when about ten miles from Montreal they halted at a farm
with a good well-built house, named Sault St. Pierre, all looking
prosperous and comfortable, and a young farmer, American in his
ways--free-spoken, familiar, and blunt--but very kindly and friendly,
was at work there with some French-Canadian labourers.

Bertram's friend knew him and often halted there on hunting
expeditions, so they went into the house--very nicely furnished, a
pretty parlour with muslin curtains, a piano, and everything pleasant;
and Joel Lea called his wife, a handsome, fair young woman. Bertram
says from the first she put him in mind of some one, and he was trying
to make out who it could be.  Then came the wife's mother, a neat
little delicate, bent woman, with dark eyes, that looked, Bertram said,
as if they had had some great fright and never recovered it.  They
called her Mrs. Dayman.

She was silent at first, and only helped her daughter and the maid to
get the dinner, and an excellent dinner it was; but she kept on looking
at Bertram, and she quite started when she heard him called Mr. Trevor.
When they were just rising up, and going to take leave, she came up to
him in a frightened agitated manner, as if she could not help it, and
said--

"Sir, you are so like a gentleman I once knew.  Was any relation of
yours ever in Canada?"

"My father was in Canada," answered Bertram.

"Oh no," she said then, very much affected, "the Captain Trevor I knew
was killed in the Lake Campaign in 1814.  It must be a mistake, yet you
put me in mind of him so strangely."

Then Bertram protested that she must mean my father, for that he had
been a captain in the --th, and had been stationed at York (as Toronto
was then called), but was badly wounded in repulsing the American
attack on the Lakes in 1814.

"Not dead?" she asked, with her cheeks getting pale, and a sort of
excitement about her, that