The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician by Charlotte Fuhrer
page 124 of 202 (61%)
page 124 of 202 (61%)
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mother and make her happy. Had his wife told him to lie down whilst
she drove a carriage-wheel across his neck, Mr. Hartley would have unhesitatingly obeyed her; how readily, then, he set about finding what most men are so glad to be without, viz., a mother-in-law, can easily be imagined. He promised his wife that so soon as business permitted him he would take steps to discover her mother's whereabouts, but that night he was awakened out of a deep sleep by cries of terror from his wife; she had had a dream, she said, that her mother hung over a precipice, looking up to her for help, which, while she hastened to give, she saw her mother sink into the yawning abyss, uttering shrieks of agony. Hartley was beside himself with fright; he thought his wife would lose her reason, and so he quieted her by assuring her that he would write the next day to get information, acting on which he would set out immediately on his search. In the morning he despatched a letter to Mr. F---- in Montreal, instructing him to obtain what information he could respecting a girl called Ellen MacNee who had lived in former years with Mrs. Rogers; in reply he was informed that the girl left the city, no trace being procurable. He then inserted advertisements in several Canadian newspapers, informing the public that if Ellen MacNee would correspond with X. Y. Z. she would hear of something to her advantage. But in vain did the fond husband seek the mother of his blue-eyed darling, now grown pale with deferred hope and anxious care, and when the latter proposed that they should personally go to Montreal in search of their missing relative he readily acquiesced, feeling assured that, even if they were unsuccessful, the excitement of travel and occupation would restore the bloom to his wife's cheeks and preserve that health which, was now apparently on the wane. In a few days they had made preparations for an extended tour, and |
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