"My uncle and his family received me with much tenderness: the servant delivered a package of letters to my uncle from my father. The carriage with one servant (the driver) had returned from the Chesapeak to Connecticut. "My father had but one brother and two sisters, of which my uncle here is the youngest. One of my aunts, the old maid, who was my _protectress_ at the old mansion, you have seen at my father's. The other was the mother of Alfred:--she married very young, to a gentleman in Hartford, of the name of Wilmot, who fell before the walls of Louisburg, in the old French war. My aunt did not long survive him;--her health, which had been for some time declining, received so serious a shock by this catastrophe, that she died a few months after the melancholy tidings arrived, leaving Alfred, their only child, then an infant, to the protection of his relations, who as soon as he arrived at a suitable age, placed him at school. "My grandfather, who had the principal management of Mr. Wilmot's estate, sent my uncle, who was then young and unmarried, to Hartford, for the purpose of transacting the necessary business. Here he became acquainted with a young lady, eminent for beauty and loveliness, but without fortune, the daughter of a poor mechanic. As soon as my grandfather was informed of this attachment, he, in a very peremptory manner, ordered my uncle to break off the connection on pain of his highest displeasure. But such is the force of early impressions, (Melissa sighed) that my uncle found it impossible to submit to these firm injunctions; a clandestine marriage ensued, and my grandfather's maledictions in consequence. The union was, however, soon dissolved; my uncle's wife died in about twelve months after their marriage, and soon after the birth of the first child, which was a daughter. Inconsolable and comfortless, my uncle put the child out to nurse, and travelled to the south. After wandering about for some time, he took up his residence in Charleston, where he amassed a splendid fortune. He finally married to an amiable and respectable woman, whose tenderness, though it did not entirely remove, yet greatly alleviated the pangs of early sorrow; and this, added to the little blandishments of a young family, fixed him in a state of more contentedness than he once ever expected to see. "His daughter by his first wife, when she became of proper age, was sent to a respectable boarding-school in Boston, where she remained until within about two years before I came here. "Alfred was educated at Harvard College: as soon as he had graduated, he came here on my uncle's request, and has since remained in his family.