During the happier days of the Gilberts, the life of this Falconer was preserved by three of them, upon a certain occasion of imminent peril. He however, being badly wounded, they convey him to their father's house, and Jessie, their sister, attends him in the character of nurse. She loves him. He returns her love with gratitude and perhaps some little actual affection, not however sufficient to banish from his mind the charms or the wealth of a lady of whom he had been previously enamored--the daughter of a gentleman who had succored and patronised him at a time when he needed aid, and who discarded him upon perceiving the growing intimacy between his child and his _protegé_. Grateful however for the kindness and evident affection of Jessie, and intoxicated with her beauty, he marries her in a moment of madness and passion--prevailing upon her to keep the marriage a secret for a short time. At this critical juncture, Falconer, who has already risen to honors and consideration in the world, as an officer of the Colonial army, receives overtures of reconciliation both from his old patron and his daughter. His former flame is rekindled in his bosom. He puts off from day to day the publication of his marriage with Jessie, and, finally, goaded by love and ambition, and encouraged by the accidental death of the regimental chaplain who married him, as well as by that of the only witness to the ceremony, he flies from Jessie who is about to become a mother, and leaving herself and friends under the impression that the rite of marriage had been a mere mockery for the purpose of seduction, throws himself at once into the arms of his first love, and at length espouses her, a short time before the decease of Jessie, who dies in bringing a son into the world. The wrath of the brothers of Jessie, has doomed this child to destruction--but their mother, at this same period giving birth to a still-born infant, an exchange is brought about through the instrumentality of an old nurse Elsie Bell, who plays an anomalous part in the story, being half witch, and half gentlewoman. The effect of this exchange is that the still-born child of Mrs. Gilbert is buried as the offspring of Jessie, while her real offspring, is sent to the West Indies, to be nurtured and educated by a sister of Mr. Gilbert. The boy thus sent was called Hyland, after one of the Hawks who perished in the rescue of Col. Falconer. Such are the events which, at the opening of the story, have broken up the family of the Gilberts, and effected their ruin.