It can easily be divined that when once in Narragansett the happy lovers found many opportunities of meeting, which were frequently brought about by the romantic and easy-going colonel, and were not hindered by Hannah’s mother when she discovered her daughter’s love-affair. Though Mrs. Robinson would not give her approval she tacitly gave her aid by helping to conceal the lovers’ meetings from Rowland Robinson; and it was with her knowledge that the lover came to Hannah’s chamber, where he often had to be concealed in the friendly cupboard. When Peter Simons could not enter the Robinson house he stood by his true-love’s window under a great lilac-bush, which is still growing, sturdy and unbroken under the weight of a century of years. In the concealing shadow of the lilac-bush words of love might be whispered to the fair girl who leaned from the window, or letters might be exchanged with comparative safety. But true love ran no smoother in the eighteenth century than in the nineteenth, and when one night a fair hand dropped a tender billet into the gloom of the lilac-bush, old Rowland Robinson chanced to open the door of his house and he saw the white messenger descend. Speechless with suspicion and rage he rushed to the lilac-bush and thrust his buckthorn stick into it with vigorous blows until a man ran out into the darkness, whom the irate father in the second’s glimpse recognized as the “wretched French dancing-master” who taught his nephews. The horrified and disgusted anger of Rowland Robinson and the scene that ensued within doors can well be imagined; little peace or happiness was there for Hannah after her father’s discovery. Updike, in his “History of the Narragansett Church,” says of her life at this time: “If she walked, her movements were watched; if she rode, a servant was ordered to be in constant attendance; if a visit was contemplated, her father immediately suspected it was only a pretext for an arranged interview; and even after departure, if the most trifling circumstance gave color to suspicion, he would immediately pursue and compel her to return. In one instance she left home to visit her aunt in New London; her father soon afterward discovered from his windows a vessel leaving Newport and taking a course toward the same place. Although the vessel and the persons on board were wholly unknown to him, his jealousies were immediately aroused. Conjecturing it was Mr. Simons intending to fulfil an arrangement previously made, he hastened to New London, arrived a few hours only after his daughter, and insisted on her instant return. No persuasions or argument could induce him to change his determination, and she was compelled to return with him.”