Page:The Castle of Wolfenbach - Parsons - 1854.djvu/192

 have no longer a father, a friend, nor a home!" "Great God! (I exclaimed) what is all this?" Tis misery in extreme, (said she, still with a fixed look and a dry eye;) your father is drowned, and I hourly expect every thing to be seized. Well, (cried she, rather wildly) let it be complete! ruin should not come by degrees." Two or three of the younger children came into the room; the moment she saw them she gave a violent shriek and fell into convulsions. Scarce in my senses, I flew about the house, and by my screams drew several persons to me. We got my mother up to her apartment, a physician was sent for, but it was many hours before she was restored; she lay three days at the point of death, the fourth the fever abated, and hopes were entertained of her life. This day a person came and took possession of the house and all our effects. By the interposition of a friend we were allowed to remain in it ten days. Judge, my dear young friend, what must have been my situation; a father dead, a mother scarcely alive, our whole property seized,—eight children younger than myself, I only fifteen, and all unprovided for—obliged to be the comforter, the supporter of all.

"Out of the numerous set of acquaintances we had, two only appeared as friends in our distress: one an old gentleman of small fortune, the other a young merchant, who had for some months paid particular attention to me, young as I was. These two persons interested themselves a good deal for us. My mother grew better, but her nerves were so shattered, that a kind of partial palsy took effect upon her speech, she spoke thick and scarcely intelligible; a sort of convulsive cry succeeded every attempt to talk; in short, her situation was most truly deplorable. Within a few days we were removed to the house of the old gentleman, without any one thing we could call our own, but clothes. This good and worthy man placed out my sisters in a convent, put