The Acadian solitude of five hundred acres and Mary Palmer's charms proved too much for the susceptible heart of Joseph Garrison.

He wooed and won her, and on his thirtieth birthday she became his wife.

The bride herself was but twenty-three, a woman of resources and of presence of mind, as she needed to be in that primitive settlement.

Children and cares came apace to the young wife, and we may be sure confined her more and more closely to her house.

But in the midst of a fast-increasing family and of multiplying cares a day's outing did occasionally come to the busy housewife, when she would go down the river to spend it at her father's farm.