In Madame Prevost, the most charming little Canadian, wife of the Commissary--a creature with the carriage of a lackey and the soul of a dry-salter--I discovered a heart full of tender sympathy, dying of ennui. Her husband's unpopularity was such that but few of the officers would enter his doors, and indeed he was so fierce a Cerberus in regard to his unfortunate wife, that he made any attempt at alleviation of her unhappy condition wellnigh impossible. However, through my acquaintance with a M. de Sarennes, a Canadian partisan officer, who stood high in his favour, he saw fit to allow my visits, and I willingly put up with his want of breeding to offer such attention as I might to his prisoner, for so in truth she was. Sarennes was attractive enough, in so far as his outward appearance went, but, like most of his countrymen--that is, the Canadians--was wanting in all those externals which are essential to a gentleman. He was courageous, but a braggart; he was well born, but had no breeding; he was open and friendly, but, I feared, truculent; and his sense of honour was not above the universal dishonesty which disgraced and wrecked his unfortunate country. I had suspected his intimacy with Prevost had some less honourable foundation than a pitying admiration for his unfortunate wife, and I was confirmed in this by his proposal in my quarters one evening that I should hand over to him some blanks, signed by St. Julhien, on the Commissary, for stores, etc., which I was to requisition as required. "May I ask to what use you intend to put them?" I said, more to sound him than for information, for this was one of the most favoured forms of peculation in the colonies. "Oh, none that you will ever know of, Chevalier; and I should think an addition to your inadequate pay would not come amiss," he added, artfully, without even an effort to veil his knavery. The whole disgraceful, pettifogging scheme disgusted me; but, because he was a much younger man than I, and I believed might be in Prevost's power, I refrained from my natural indignation, and passing over the personal affront, I spake to him with all the consideration of a friend. I shewed him the path which he was treading, and pointed out the inevitable disgrace which must attend such a course, and most of all, the wretched meanness of so contemptible a crime. But, to my astonishment, he was inclined to excuse and cloak his wrong-doing.