motioning them to silence, she arose and advanced to meet us, and in a voice, whose melodious sweetness I can compare to none I have ever heard, unless it is yours, my Pauline, she said in good French :
« Welcome. brothers, be seated. »
If we had been charmed by her beauty. we were doubly so by her speech, which, independent of the beautiful mouth and teeth it discovered, was so warm, cordial and welcome.
I was only a lad, and a green one, and you know the taciturnity of Indians. Our guide stood stone still, and the others of our party were positively overawed by the beauty and majesty of the lovely vision before us. I made out to stammer the Baron’s name. She readily comprehended, and saying, « You would have speech of the Baron, » glided into the next room. In a moment a servant came to say, « The Baron would see us in his study ; » and we were ushered into a small paneled room, where, seated at a round pine stable in the centre, sat the object of our journey, with a Latin and Greek lexicon before him, from which, it appeared, he was instructing his son, a youth who sat beside him. Heaps of papers, parchments, and books were arranged on shelves around him. There was a sad, careworn look about the majestic personage who now arose to welcome us, and with frank politeness offered a hand to each. I never had the pleasure to meet a King or Emperor, but I should say he must have looked like one. I never saw him only on that occasion, but took good observation of him then, and should give it as my opinion, that no disappointment or disgust of the world occasioned his retreat, but simply of the holy desire to do good to the benighted race among whom, by providence of God, he had been placed.
He had an altar in his house, and a missionary priest. It was on the occasion of the evening service that we again saw, and for the last time, the lovely Theresa, for by that name she had been baptised previous to her marnage.
I regret to say that this beautiful and intelligent creature was destined
to pass only a few short years on earth after I saw her. Her looks will never
be forgotten by me, nor the dovelike expression of those lustrous eyes, when
bent on her lord or her children.
— Mrs Williams, The French neutrals.
(Ce récit s’inspire de traditions ou de légendes. Il n’est cité ici qu’à titre de curiosité.)
