It is needless, as well as painful, for me to dwell upon
the subject. Two years after he first came to Boston we were married. We
soon removed to our own dwelling, which was a wedding gift to me, from
my father. For a time he treated me with the utmost kindness and
affection. But you may believe me, Miss Simmonds, when I inform you that
he has been a dissipated, unprincipled man from his youth. His seemingly
correct habits had merely been put on, for the purpose of gaining him an
entrance into respectable society. When he began to treat me with
indifference and neglect, for a long time I bore it in silence; but I
was at length forced to acquaint my parents of the matter. My father
soon took measures to ascertain what manner of life he had led while
pursuing his studies in New York; and the information he gained was very
discreditable to Mr. Almont. But my parents advised me, as we were
married, to try if, by kindness, I could not reclaim him from his evil
ways. I willingly followed their advice, for I still loved him; but, I
suppose the restraint which for a time he had imposed upon himself made
him all the more reckless when he returned to his evil courses. He soon
seemed to lose all respect for me as well as for himself; and his
conduct became so vicious that my father recalled me to his home, and
forbade Mr.
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