Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/139

 Rh Mr. Downe invited the same party to a similar entertainment at his house the day following.

Our funds were as low as they well could be, for I had paid £5 for the insurance of my merchandise, and I had been obliged to pay £3 for the purchase of a wedding-ring, and procuring the license for our marriage. You may judge of our mutual affection, by our having refused to marry persons of wealth. You should also observe the strong confidence we had in the good Providence of God; and blessed be his name! we have never had reason to repent.

We lived for a month or two in a furnished room; then I received from France a feather-bed, and several coverlets, which my former valet, Manseau, had contrived to save from my house. My sister Forestier sent me some household linen from London, and with these grand additions to our possessions, we ventured upon hiring a small house in a back street. The French Refugees had talked about our marriage, and our poverty, which caused some of the inhabitants of the town to come and see us; and they added to our stock all the articles of furniture that were necessary to the comfort of a small family; so we were furnished with all we could desire, without having spent one farthing upon it from our own very small purse. The liberality shown to us did not stop there, for every market day meat, poultry, and grain poured upon us in such abundance, that during the six or eight months we lived there, I only bought one bushel of wheat; and we had two bushels left when we removed. All this was done in the true spirit of Christian charity; we never knew from whom any of these things came.

Our good cheer costing us little or nothing, we were glad to share it with our fellow Refugees, who did not meet with