Page:Posthumous works, in prose and verse - Ann Eliza Bleecker.djvu/45

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MARIA KITTLE.
2

with the little prattler wantoning before them colle&ing flowers and purfuing the velvet elu- five butterfly, MARIA'S cheek fuffufing with rapture, "Oh my dear," fhe would fay, "we are happier than human beings can expect to be; how trivial are the evils annexed to our fituation! may God avert that our heaven be limited to this life !"

Eleven years now elapfed before Mrs. KIT TLE discovered any figns of pregnancy: her fpoufe filently wifhed for a fon, and his defires were at length gratified ; fhe was delivered of a charming boy, who was named, after him, WILLIAM.

A French and Indian war had commenced fbmetime before ; but about eight months after her delivery, the favages began to commit the moft horrid depredations on the Engliih frontiers. Mr. KITTLE, alarmed at the danger of his brothers, who dwelt near Fort-Edward, (the eldeft being juft married to a very agree able young woman) invited them to reiide with him during the war.

They were fcarce arrived when the enemy made further incurfions in the country, burning the villages and fcalping the inhabitants, neither