Page:Adventures of Susan Hopley (Volume 1).pdf/20

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SUSAN HOPLEY.
7

herself beside him on the ground, and, by folding him in her arms, contrived to keep some warmth in his blood till she could get assistance in the morning.

At length, Major Leeson, who was a good deal older than his wife, beginning to feel some effects from the hardships he had undergone, they resolved to leave the army, and set themselves down for life in the village where they had first met. They had not much money; he had his half-pay, and she had two hundred ayear allowed her by her mother's brother, Mr. Wentworth of Oakfield; but as they had no children, and a great deal of love for one another, they had enough. However, after they had lived in this way for some time, Mrs. Leeson, to her own surprise and that of everybody else, found herself in the family way, and was brought to bed of as lovely a little boy as eyes ever looked upon. Great was the joy at his birth, and a happy family they were till the child came to be about six or seven years old; but then the expenses of his education, and the means of setting him afloat in the world began to be thought of; and after much deliberation and many hard struggles, it was resolved that the Major should apply to be placed on full-pay again, in order that at the end of a few